A Stir of Echoes - By Richard Matheson Page 0,19

before Richard... hate!... The word seemed to flare in my mind the way a bulb does just before it has burned out and gone black.

"You look so handsome, Richard," she said. There was a break in her voice. "That's a pretty suit."

"Never tells me I'm handsome," Frank said.

"Pity?" Richard plucked at the shirt and held the bright material out toward Elizabeth.

"Oh, yes. So pretty."

"Well, sittenzie down, guests," said Frank, "and name your poison-to quote the immortal lines of that world-famous bitch, Elsie Leigh."

"You are in a good mood," I told him.

"What, goddammit, is your pleasure, goddammit?" Frank said.

"Nothing for me," Anne said stiffly. I said a glass of wine if he had some. He named off three. I said sauterne.

"Saw-terne-coming goddamn up." Frank lurched away toward the kitchen with a belch. Elizabeth straightened up, a strained smile on her face.

"He's had a bad day," she said, trying in vain to make it sound amusing. "Don't pay any attention to him."

"Are you sure you want to bother with us, Liz?" Anne asked softly. "We wouldn't mind if-"

"Oh, don't be silly, dear," Elizabeth said and I sensed a wave of taut unhappiness rushing through her. In the kitchen Frank belched again ringingly. "Key of C," he said.

"Oh... before I forget," Elizabeth said, "did I leave a comb at your house the other day?" Anne clucked. "For heaven's sake," she said. "Yes. You did. I've been meaning to bring it back at least a dozen times and I keep forgetting. I'm sorry."

"Oh, that's all right, dear," Elizabeth said. "I just want to know where it is. I'll pick it up sometime."

"saw-terne." Frank came back in the room with a filled glass in his hand.

"I'll get dinner ready," Elizabeth said, starting for the kitchen.

"Let me help you," Anne offered.

"There's nothing to do," Elizabeth said, smiling. The smile faded. Frank was blocking her way. "Frank," she said, pleadingly.

"Lizzie doesn't talk here anymore," he said. "Do you, Lizzie?"

"Frank, let me by." Her voice was strained.

"Oh, she's so mad, so mad." He pawed at her shoulder. "You mad there, Lizzie?"

"I'll help you, Liz," Anne said, getting up and taking Richard's hand. Elizabeth opened her mouth as if to speak, then didn't. I could sense the gratitude and anger mixed in her. Frank stepped aside as Anne came over and the two women and Richard started into the kitchen.

"One pregnant woman," itemized Frank, "one little boy. Two pregnant women." He blew out a whistling breath. "'Tis the season to be jolly." He snickered, "Pretty good, eh?" he asked me.

"Just as funny as it can be," I said.

"You don't think that, you sober bastard" he said. He handed me the glass roughly and some of the wine spilled up over the edge and across my hand. "Ooops," said Frank, "oops, oops." He just about fell down on the arm chair.

"She's mad," he said, "just 'cause I told her to try and lift the refrigerator so we wouldn't have to bother having a kid." Chuckling, he reached for his can of beer. He held it out.

"Here's to un-knocked-up femininity," he toasted. "Long may the hell they wave." He hiccupped and drained the can. Abruptly his face grew flatly sullen. He dropped the empty can on the rug.

"Babies," he said, bitterly, loud enough to be heard in the kitchen. "Who the hell invented them?" If I'd had any intention of telling them about the woman, Frank dispelled it quickly. He kept drinking until dinner was on the table and then kept on all through it, barely touching his food. It got to the point where, when Elizabeth-in a desperate search for diverting conversation-mentioned my strange phone call when Anne had been knocked unconscious, I shrugged and said it had only been a coincidence. I just didn't want to talk about it there.

I thought of the way mediums often describe their entrances into haunted houses-how they sense alien presences in the air. Well, that house was haunted too. I felt it strongly. Haunted by despairs, by the ghosts of a thousand cruel words and acts, by the phantom residue of unresolved angers.

"Babies," Frank kept saying as he stabbed vengefully at his food, "babies. Are they valid? Are they integral? Do they add up? Are they the goddamn sum of their parts? I ask you."

"Frank, you're making it-" Elizabeth started.

"Not you," he interrupted, "I'm not asking you. You're sick in the head about babies. Babies are your mania. You live babies, you breathe babies." He looked at Anne and me. "Lizzie," he said,