Now he needed the dark. Needed the quiet.

Chapter 6 of Echoes In The Walls

_____

Jett called a staff meeting.

It was something he never did — not in the years with Sierra, not during tours, not even back in the Snake Choir days when the band was constantly one emotional outburst away from breaking up. 

He hated meetings. Too much order. Too many eyes. Too many people wanting to say something that didn’t matter.

But now he needed all eyes on him.

He stood at the head of the dining table, a large oak relic more suited to charity galas than Tuesday mornings with two employees and a PA. 

Maria sat with her arms folded. Kenneth leaned against the wall, arms crossed. Avery had her laptop open in front of her, but wasn’t typing.

On the table sat his voice recorder.

“Someone is in this house,” Jett said. “And someone is helping them.”

Nobody moved. No one disagreed. No one said anything.

He pressed Play.

The warped humming filled the room — soft, ghostly, just loud enough to twist the silence. It was a song. Sort of. An unfinished bit of Jett singing, kind of tunelessly, and by himself.

When it ended, Jett looked up. “That’s my song. That’s me. But I didn’t record it. I didn’t hum it. That came from outside my bedroom last night.”

A long pause.

Finally, Kenneth spoke. “The cameras didn’t show anything. No one came in or out.”

“They wouldn’t,” Jett snapped. “If someone’s already inside — living here — they’re not coming in and out.”

Maria shook her head as if to say This again?

“This still,” Jett correcting her without realizing it. “You said you don’t go upstairs at night, Maria.”

“I doan.”

“Then how did the mirror fog up in the east guest bathroom two nights ago?”

She looked genuinely confused. “Fog?”

“Steam. On the glass. I found it.”

“Señor, I haven’t cleaned that bathroom in a month. You told me not to touch that side of the house.”

Jett looked to Kenneth. “Have you been upstairs?”

“I check the floors during my rounds.”

“With detail?”

Kenneth shrugged. “Enough.”

“Someone’s in here.” Jett’s voice cracked with just enough anger.

Avery finally spoke. “What if no one is?”

He turned to her slowly, but didn’t say anything.

“What if what you’re hearing . . . isn’t someone else?” she asked. 

Her voice was careful. Too careful. 

“What if it’s your memory looping back? Like an echo.”

“No.”

“It could be psychological. Hallucinations tied to old trauma. Or stress. Or even early —”

“Don’t say it.”

She held his gaze. “You’re not crazy. But you’re also not fine.”

Jett stepped back from the table, as if physically struck. “You sound like Sierra.”

Avery took a long moment to reply. “Maybe she was right to be worried.”

Maria stood suddenly, her chair almost falling backwards. “This ees too much.”

“Sit down,” Jett barked.

She looked at him, hard. “You do not speak to me like that.” She crossed her arms again.

A silence stretched. Too long.

Jett looked down at the recorder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean —”

“I know what you mean,” she snapped. “You theenk you the only one with ghosts in thees house.”

And then, in a huff, she turned and left.

*     *     *

That evening, Jett sat alone in the wine cellar, surrounded by silence.

The cellar was old — older than the rest of the house. It was built first. The cool surface felt closer to stone than drywall. Shelves of dusty bottles lined the walls, untouched for years. He didn’t drink anymore. Not since the hotel in São Paulo, the night with the balcony, the storm, the blackout.

But now he needed the dark. Needed the quiet.

The humming had followed him here.

He thought that, maybe, if he sat still long enough, it would reveal itself.

He lit a single candle. Turned out the lights. Watched the shadows bend and dance along the racks.

Something creaked behind him.

He turned. It was just the door.

Or the floor.

Or the air itself remembering a sound it used to make.

Still, he stood and walked to the far wall. A stack of old amp cases leaned there — remnants of his studio days. A small, cracked mirror rested against one.

In the candlelight, the reflection wavered.

He thought he saw someone.

Big, but thin. Barefoot. Staring.

He blinked.

Gone.

But a sound rose — a soft, rhythmic tapping. Like fingers on a snare.

The first beat of an old song.

Snakebite Radio. The opening track. It always started with just the drums.

And no one alive played it quite like Frankie.

Frankie, who died in a car crash over thirty years ago.

Jett stepped back, hand to his chest.

“No,” he whispered. “That’s not possible.”

The tapping stopped. Silence returned.

He left the candle burning and walked out without looking back.

*     *     *

Later, Avery knocked gently on his bedroom door.

He didn’t answer.

“Jett?” she said softly.

“I’m not talking.”

She sighed. “Can I just leave something for you?”

A long pause. Then: “Fine.”

She entered quietly and placed a small hardcover book on his nightstand. The pages were marked with sticky notes and highlights. A medical reference.

Music and Memory: Hallucinations in the Aging Mind.

“You can throw it away if you want,” she said.

“I probably will.”

An awkward pause.

“Good night.” And she left, closing the door behind her.

Throw it away, he thought.

But he didn’t. He just stared at it. A deep blue cover. Swirling mist around the block-letter title. The faint outline of a face. An old face. Not a male, not a female, but he saw himself in it. Faintly. Kind of.  

After a while — a long while — he opened it.

He scanned the contents, riffed through the pages, read the back cover, then the author bio. Leanne Barley, PhD. Then he read half a chapter.

When he was done, he cried for the first time in fifteen years.

_____

© Secret Agent Man
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