A Stir of Echoes - By Richard Matheson Page 0,14

groaning. "Oh, God," he said, "I wish it was Saturday." He walked out of the kitchen to get his suit coat. I asked Elizabeth how she was.

"Fine, thank you," she said. "Oh, we'd like you and Anne to come to dinner Wednesday night if you're free."

I nodded. "Fine. We'd love to." Elizabeth smiled and we stood there a moment in silence.

"That was certainly interesting the other night," she said then.

"Yes," I said. "Too bad I didn't get to see it."

She laughed faintly. "It was certainly interesting," she said. Frank came back in.

"Well, off to goddamn Siberia," he said disgustedly.

"Darling, don't forget to bring home some coffee when you-" Elizabeth started to say.

"Hell, you get it," Frank interrupted angrily. "You've got all day to horse around. I'm not going shopping after working all day in that lousy, goddamn plant."

Elizabeth smiled feebly and turned back to the stove, a flush rising in her cheeks. I saw her throat move convulsively.

"Women," Frank said, jerking open the door. "Jesus!" I didn't say anything. We left the house and drove to work. We were seven minutes late. It happened that afternoon.

I'd just come out of the washroom. I stopped at the cooler and drew myself a cup of water. I drank it and, crumpling the cup, threw it into the disposal can. I turned and started back for my desk. And staggered violently as something heavy hit me on the head.

At my cry, several of the men and women in the office turned suddenly from their work and gaped at me. My legs were rubbery under me and I was lurching sideways toward one of the desks; which I caught at desperately and clung to, a dazed expression on my face.

One of the men, Ken Lacey, ran over to me and caught me by the arm.

"What is it, fella?" I heard him ask.

"Anne," I said.

"What?"

"Anne!" I pulled away from him, then staggered again, my hands pressing at the top of my head. I could feel terrible shooting pains there; as if someone had hit me with a hammer. Several other people came hurrying over.

"What is it?" I heard one of the secretaries say.

"I don't know," Lacey said. "Somebody get him a chair."

"Anne." I looked around with an expression of panic on my face. I wouldn't sit down.

"I'm all right, I'm all right," I kept insisting, managing to pull away from Lacey again. They watched me in surprise as I ran to my desk, threw myself down on the chair and grabbed the phone. They told me later I looked like a very frightened man. I was. The only trouble was I didn't know what I was frightened about. I only knew it had something to do with Anne.

The phone kept ringing at home with no one answering. I writhed in the chair and (they said later) the tense, stricken look on my face got worse. I punched down the button and dialed again with shaking fingers. I didn't look over to where they were standing, watching. I kept the receiver pressed to my ear.

"Come on," I remember muttering in an agony of inexplicable dread. "Come on. Answer!" I heard the phone picked up.

"Hello?"

"Anne?"

"Is this you, Tom?" I recognized Elizabeth's thin voice and I felt as if someone had kicked me in the stomach.

"Where's Anne?" I said, barely able to breathe.

"She's on the bed," Elizabeth told me. "I just found her unconscious on the kitchen floor."

"Is she all right?"

"I don't know. I called the doctor."

"I'll be right there." I slammed down the receiver and jerked my coat off the hat rack. I must have looked like a maniac as I raced out of there.

The next half hour was sheer hell. I had to rush to Frank's department to get the car key-and that took a pass. Then I had to get another emergency pass to leave the plant. I raced across the parking lot until I got a stitch in my side-and, naturally, Frank had parked as far from the gate as it was possible to get. I gunned the car across the lot at sixty miles an hour, screeching to a halt at the gate, showed my pass, then jolted into the street.

It was pure luck I didn't get arrested at least a dozen times on that drive home. I passed red lights, stop signs, blinkers. I passed on the right, turned left from the right-hand lane and right from the left-hand lane; I broke every speed law there is. But I got home in