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  dead echo

  C. G. BANKS

  DEAD ECHO

  Copyright © 2014 by C. G. Banks

  All rights reserved. This includes the right to reproduce any portion of this book in any form.

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  Prologue

  The girl had been kicking from the trunk for a good while and only in the last few minutes had she appeared to run out of steam. Joe Carter and his boy, Billy, were passing around a bottle and laughing. They thought the retarded girl kicking around back there was funny. She’d been walking along the road about an hour ago, right before dark, and she’d been nothing to get into the trunk. She didn’t have a lot in the brains department but those titties deserved a second look. Up close.

  Carter slowed the car, looking for the turn off. It was hard enough to see in the daylight, by night it was like a needle in a haystack. “There it is,” Billy said pointing. Carter slowed down the Buick Roadmaster and slowly turned left off onto the gravel. As he checked the rear view mirror he was glad theirs was the only car on the highway.

  Branches scraped and clawed along the side of the car and there were potholes big enough to get lost in but that wasn’t going to stop them. Carter already had a spike in his pants a cat couldn’t scratch. “Wind on back behind the lake,” Billy said as if Carter didn’t already know. They looked at each other and grinned.

  After another couple of minutes they got to a break in the foliage where the road widened out and Carter steered left again. The highway now might as well have been in another universe. He stopped the car and pulled the keys free of the ignition. Everything around them went quiet as the grave.

  Billy looked at him, his eyes shining like little diamonds. Carter could tell he was really pumped up. He opened the car door and got out, fixing his pants so he could walk straight. They met at the trunk.

  Looked at each other for a moment until Carter opened it up. There she was, wide-eyed, shrunk down like she was trying to hide in the otherwise empty space. The two men smiled again. Billy leaned down and started pulling her out.

  She yelled a little bit but didn’t seem to make much sense. Carter had seen her around town a couple of times, figured her brains weren’t much more than oatmeal anyway. She looked scared but what the hell did she know?

  “Get her over toward the lake,” he said and left Billy to get it done. He skirted the side of the car and made his way to the lake. The moon was out like a small sun, casting shadows that writhed and stretched along the ground. He heard Billy cuss once and then the slamming of the trunk lid. He lit a cigarette. Turned back to watch Billy come on.

  He had the girl pushed out in front of him and she was bent over, shuffling. Every once in a while she took her eyes from the ground and looked about as if trying to decide which direction to run. Billy had torn her shirt and one breast was visible in the moonlight, milky white like cream. He smiled, grabbed at the front of his pants.

  “Over here by this tree,” he called to Billy. It was a big oak that had rotted through the middle and cracked on one side. Most of it lay on the ground but there was one jagged slice left pointing up like a fang with a hole of darkness around the base. It drew his attention for a moment until Billy shoved the girl to her knees in front of him. She didn’t look up this time.

  “All right,” Billy said, almost panting. “All right.” He brought his feral eyes to Carter’s.

  “Bend her over that tree and hold her arms,” Carter said. He pointed, spit out the cigarette butt, and started undoing his belt buckle.

  “Oh yeah,” Billy said, dragging the girl over to the broken tree. He draped her across it like a wet blanket and she didn’t move. All she did was make a small mewling noise like a cat trapped in a bag.

  Carter walked over and slapped her on the ass. Shut her up good and quick. Then he grabbed hold of her pants on either side of her hips and wrenched them down to the ground, panties and all. He stepped back. “Two moons out tonight, hey Billy?” he said and they had another good laugh. The goon moved around the tree, grabbed both of the girl’s arms. She made another small sound but it didn’t amount to much. Carter dropped his pants. Moved up behind her and spit in his hand.

  Didn’t notice the tendrils of mist seeping out of the broken hole in the ground underneath the fang.

  In fact, he didn’t notice anything but the jiggling white ass he was starting to work over. He went at it like a hound to the trail for a couple of minutes, only slowing down when he began to get light-headed. He leaned into her and straightened up. Looked into Billy leering face. The sonofabitch’s tongue was practically hanging out of his mouth. He pulled out. Billy’s eyes got wider. “You done?” he asked.

  “Naw,” Carter said. “Spin ‘er over. I wanta look at ‘er.”

  The henchman did as he was told. The girl mewled again and turned her face away. Carter moved in for the second show. But on his third stoke, the girl twisted violently, pulling one of her arms free, and with lightning precision lashed out and dragged her fingernails into a deep runnel along Carter’s face. He immediately pulled out and went to his knees on the ground, holding his face. “Goddammit! I told you to hold her!” he shouted at Billy, fumbling around on the other side of the downed tree. The girl flipped over backward to the other side of the tree and Billy began grappling with her. Carter, blood streaming down his face, made his move around the side to let her have it.

  In the confusion of trying to control the girl, Billy had no time to watch Carter coming around. He punched out a couple of quick, hard rights and the girl quit fighting so much. And when he looked up he saw Carter. And pissed his pants.

  The man was standing no more than ten feet away, seemingly frozen in place. The misty tendrils from the broken tree had thickened and grown during the struggle. Now they looped out from the hole and had somehow attached themselves to the older man. But not to just anywhere. The grey, almost-tentacles had reached over to Carter’s face, where the blood was flowing, and incredibly seemed to be digging inside. Carter grimaced and the skin of his face pulsed and stretched like something was entering him. He made a gagging sound and his tongue popped out. And then, equally insane, his head began to dissolve. Like acid had been injected inside it. Carter fell to his knees, clutching at his throat. His face was running like hot tallow dripping off his skull. His hair slid off the back of his head.

  Billy started screaming. Backing up toward the lake. Not taking the time to look behind him. The girl was forgotten.

  He tripped over a stump or some such thing and went down hard on his ass. From around the corner of the downed tree he could see steam rising up and an awful acrid stench burned his nostrils. It was also right then his hands touched water. Amid the horrible gurgling sound from the other side of the tree, Billy wrenched his head around.

  The lake had come alive. There were what appeared to be floating heads dotting its surface and the water had pushed itself into thick fingers that had reached him while he wasn’t looking. And he couldn’t pull his hands free. It was like they were stuck in glue but infinitely worse. Glue that burned. He turned his face toward the sky and started screaming. Was immediately jerked backward as the water pooled over his body, moving over him like oil. And then he began to be dragged toward the lake, his shoes dragging ruts in the dirt. In another few seconds he was gone completely and once again the lake was confined to the bank. The fl
oating heads dipped below the water line and the surface became glassy, still.

  The abandoned Roadmaster was found several days later, but as to the three people who’d wandered into the trap of Leszno’s Acres, not a scrap of evidence was ever found.