What Moves Between Us

I stayed at that table for forty minutes. Just sitting. Listening. The basement door stayed open and I stayed frozen and nothing happened.

Then Henley came home from school.

I heard the bus first. The echo of air brakes two blocks away. Counted to four. Then the real sound came. She burst through the front door like always. Backpack hitting the floor. Shoes kicked into the corner.

"Dad? I'm starving."

I got up. Closed the basement door. Made her a sandwich.

The whole time I was spreading peanut butter I kept thinking about my voice. About that "please." About how I still hadn't said those words yet.

Which meant they were still coming.

That night Elisa found me in the garage at midnight. I was sitting on the concrete with my back against the wall. Just sitting in the dark.

"What are you doing?"

"Listening," I said.

She didn't ask what for. She'd stopped asking things like that. Just stood there in her bathrobe with her arms crossed.

"You need to sleep," she said.

"I heard something today."

"You always hear something."

"My voice. From the basement. Telling someone not to go down there."

She was quiet for a long time. Then: "So don't go down there."

"I haven't said it yet."

"Then maybe you won't."

But I could hear it in her voice. The edge. The thing she wasn't saying. That she was getting tired of this. Of me. Of the way I'd been since we moved here.

I wanted to tell her about the pattern I'd been seeing. About how the echoes keep showing worse versions. Longer screams. Angrier sounds. Things that should happen but then don't.

Instead I just said, "Yeah. Maybe."

She went back inside.

I stayed in the garage until 2 AM, listening to nothing.

Three days later I was putting groceries away when I heard it again.

Henley's scream.

Not the real one. The echo. The one from three weeks ago when she fell off the ladder.

But she was at school. I'd dropped her off myself. Watched her walk through those double doors.

I stood there with a bag of apples in my hand and I listened to my daughter scream. That same sharp sound. But this time it went on longer. Much longer. Kept rising in pitch until it didn't sound like fear anymore. It sounded like pain.

I counted. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

No real scream followed.

I dropped the apples. Got in my car. Drove to the school going fifteen over the whole way.

She was fine. Sitting in math class. I watched her through the door window for five minutes like a creep until a teacher asked if I needed something.

"Just checking on my daughter," I said.

The teacher looked at me like I was insane.

Maybe I was.

That night I couldn't sleep. Kept running it through my head. I'd heard Henley's scream. Her echo from three weeks ago. But she wasn't home. Wasn't anywhere near me.

Unless.

Unless the echo wasn't for her.

I got out of bed. Went downstairs. The house was dark and quiet. I stood in the kitchen and I stared at the basement door.

It was closed. Had been closed since that day I heard my voice.

I thought about opening it. Thought about walking down those stairs to prove to myself there was nothing there. Just a washing machine. Just paint cans and boxes.

But I couldn't move.

Because I kept thinking about what I'd heard in my own voice. That desperate "please." And I kept thinking about Henley's scream that came when she wasn't home.

What if the echoes don't stay with the person who makes them?

What if they move?

The next morning Elisa told me she was taking Henley to her mother's for the weekend.

"Just a couple days," she said. "Give you some space."

She didn't say what kind of space. Didn't say whether she thought I was losing it or whether she was just tired of watching me lose it.

I helped them pack. Walked them to the car. Hugged Henley tight enough that she squirmed away.

"You're being weird, Dad."

"I know. Sorry."

I watched them drive away. Stood in the driveway until the car turned the corner.

Then I went back inside to the empty house.

It was quiet. So quiet I could hear everything. The refrigerator humming. The furnace clicking on. The settling of walls and floors.

I made coffee. Sat at the kitchen table. Same spot as before.

The basement door was still closed.

I stared at it for an hour. Maybe more. Lost track of time.

Then I heard it.

Footsteps.

Coming up from the basement. Slow. Deliberate. One step at a time.

The echo.

I counted. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

The real footsteps started.

Coming up from the basement.

But I was alone in the house.

I stood up so fast my chair fell over backwards. Stood there staring at that door. The footsteps kept coming. Closer. I could hear the creak of each stair. Could hear the weight of something moving up toward me.

Getting closer to the door.

And I ran.

Didn't think about it. Just ran. Out the front door. Down the driveway. Into the street. Kept running until I was three blocks away and my lungs were burning and I couldn't run anymore.

I bent over with my hands on my knees, gasping.

Pulled out my phone with shaking hands. Called Elisa.

"Come home," I said when she answered. "Please. Come home right now."

"What's wrong?"

"Just come home. Don't go in the house. Just come home and we'll leave. We'll go somewhere else. A hotel. Anywhere. Just please."

"You're scaring me."

"I'm scaring myself."

She didn't come home. Said I needed to calm down. Said she was calling her brother. Said maybe I should talk to someone.

I stayed on the sidewalk for twenty minutes before I started walking back.

Then I saw the little girl.

Maybe eight years old. Riding her bike in circles in front of the house next to mine. Round and round. Singing something to herself.

And I heard it.

The scream.

Henley's scream. The one from the grocery store. The one that went on too long. That sounded like pain.

But it wasn't coming from my house. It was coming from ahead. From where the little girl would be in about five seconds if she kept riding in those circles.

I started running back.

The scream kept going. Getting louder. More desperate. I was running and counting at the same time. One. Two. Three.

The little girl hit a crack in the sidewalk.

Four.

Her bike wobbled.

Five.

She went down. Hard. Her head bounced off the concrete with a sound that made my stomach turn.

The real scream started. That same scream. Henley's scream. Coming out of this little girl's mouth.

I was there. Kneeling next to her. Blood coming from somewhere. Her eyes unfocused.

"It's okay," I kept saying. "It's okay. It's okay."

But it wasn't okay.

Because I'd heard this scream before. Three weeks ago. When Henley fell off the ladder.

Except Henley had been fine. Scraped knee. Bruised ego.

This little girl wasn't fine.

The ambulance came. Took her away. Lights and sirens.

Her mother was screaming. A neighbor held her back while they loaded her daughter into the ambulance.

I stood there on the sidewalk covered in someone else's kid's blood and all I could think was:

I'd heard that scream before.

I walked back to my house in a daze. The front door was still open from when I'd run out.

Stood in the entryway. Looking at the basement door.

The house was silent.

I kept thinking about Henley's scream. The one I heard three weeks ago. The extra two seconds that didn't match what actually happened to her.

And I kept thinking about that little girl's scream. The one I just heard. The one that matched.

Maybe it's nothing. Maybe I'm connecting things that aren't connected because I'm losing my mind.

But what if Henley's echo was looking for someone?

I don't know. Can't know.

All I know is I heard footsteps coming up from the basement when I was alone in this house.

And I ran.

It's been six hours. Elisa won't return my calls. The neighbor kid is in surgery.

I'm sitting at the kitchen table again. Same spot.

The basement door is closed.

I should go down there. Should open that door and walk down those stairs and face whatever I was supposed to face.

But I can't.

The house is getting dark. I haven't turned on any lights.

Just sitting here. Listening.

Waiting to hear who screams next.