Read the book: «The Echoes of the Gone»

© Alex Dorne, 2025

ISBN 978-5-0067-0098-7

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Chapter 1

Lachmorne was a small town, one of dozens like it in any province. It was quiet, nothing particularly noteworthy ever happened there – but that was precisely its charm. Cozy streets lined with tidy houses, all looking much like the ones in other similar towns, didn’t draw much attention, and that gave the place a sense of calm. On the central square, a few small shops, cafés, and even a couple of restaurants operated – usually with half-empty tables, as most people preferred the comfort of their homes to dining out. The air was fresh, and though the roads weren’t exactly modern, they were perfectly serviceable.

Not far from the town’s outskirts, on Park Street stood an old house, a little set apart from the rest of the street. Its facade had long ago been repainted a dull beige, and the windows were covered with curtains. It looked abandoned, and though it had clearly undergone a few renovations, it had gradually lost its once-tidy appearance over the years. Now it simply stood there, holding onto the memories of those who had once lived within.

The mid-September morning was chilly, as was often the case in Lachmorne during the autumn months. A distant fog hovered on the horizon, but overall, the weather was pleasant enough. A van carrying workers pulled up in front of the old house. The first to step out was Martin – a tall, calm man in his forties, dressed in a work jacket and cap, looking a little worn out after visiting the local bar the night before. Behind him came his partner Dan – a young, slightly nervous guy, still getting used to his new job. Both worked for a construction company and had come to inspect the house ahead of its scheduled demolition.

“Well, let’s go,” Martin said, slinging his tool bag over his shoulder and heading toward the house. His voice was steady, with no hint of urgency.

Dan hesitated for a moment, looking at the old house. The place seemed ordinary enough, but something about it unsettled him.

“No one’s lived here for a long time, right?” he said, scanning the walls of the house. “Let’s just hope nothing comes crashing down.”

“Don’t worry,” Martin replied with a smile. “It’s just an old house, nothing more. We’ll take a quick look and head back to the office to file our report.”

Dan sighed and followed, opening the gate. There was still a trace of unease in his eyes. He had the feeling this place didn’t quite fit his usual idea of what abandoned buildings should be like, even if outwardly it didn’t seem dangerous.

“You know the roof’s in bad shape,” Dan said as they approached and saw the first signs of damage. “We’ll have to be really careful dismantling it.”

“That’s not a problem,” Martin replied, walking calmly to the door and placing his hand on the handle. “Standard job. No issues.”

Dan nodded silently and followed. The door opened with difficulty, and they stepped inside. The interior was dark and cool. The walls and floor were covered in dust, and the air smelled musty, like in any long-unattended place. Nothing out of the ordinary – typical for abandoned houses. Dan felt his anxiety ease slightly, though a vague discomfort still lingered. There was a lot of work to do, and he needed to focus. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that this house was hiding something more than just old dust.

“Let’s start with the roof,” Martin said, picking up his tools. “Then the rest. Business as usual.”

Martin and Dan climbed the creaky stairs to the second floor. Each step echoed through the empty rooms. Light filtered in through narrow gaps in the curtains, casting dim stripes on the walls. The air was filled with the scent of dampness and old wood, a reminder of time slowly erasing the traces of the former residents.

“Here, take the flashlight,” Martin said, handing Dan a small but powerful torch. “Might be dark up in the attic.”

Dan took the flashlight, his fingers slightly trembling. He felt like someone was watching them. Maybe it was just shadows playing tricks or his imagination running wild, but the unease wouldn’t go away.

Martin, ignoring his partner’s doubts, decisively opened the attic hatch and climbed up first. Dan followed, lighting the way ahead. The attic was cluttered with old boxes covered in thick dust. Torn cobwebs hung from the corners, and the air was heavy and stagnant.

“A bit odd,” Dan muttered, shining the beam on the far wall. “Why are there so many locked chests up here?”

Martin grunted. “Maybe the previous owners just left their old stuff behind. The chests aren’t open, are they?”

Dan stepped closer and cautiously touched one of the boxes. The wood felt cold beneath his fingers. He leaned in to examine the carved patterns on the lid – strange symbols and unfamiliar markings.

“Doesn’t look like a clothes chest,” he said.

Martin chuckled and sat on a nearby box. “Dan, you’re too jumpy. Let’s get to work. We’ll check the roof, then you can study the chests all you want.”

After finishing the roof inspection, Martin decided to check the basement. Dan wasn’t thrilled about going down there but didn’t want to seem like a coward, so he followed. The stairs were steep, the steps cracked with age, and the air grew damp and cool. Their flashlights picked out patches of crumbling plaster and mold-streaked walls from the darkness.

“Clearly no one’s been here in a long time,” Dan muttered, glancing around.

In the far corner of the basement, he noticed an old wooden wardrobe, covered, like most of the items in this house, with a thick layer of dust. It looked slightly out of place, as if it had simply been forgotten or deliberately left there, hidden in the darkest corner.

“You see that?” Dan asked, pointing at the wardrobe.

Martin followed his gaze and approached the wardrobe. With some effort, he pulled at the creaky door, revealing its contents. Inside, among old belongings and crumbling boxes, one cardboard box stood out from the rest of the junk. It had no stickers, no logos, just a few numbers and dates scrawled in black marker.

Dan carefully picked it up and blew the dust off the lid. Martin squinted and took one of the audio tapes that lay inside the box.

“Tapes,” he said. “I wonder what’s recorded on them.”

Dan swallowed, a chill running down his spine.

“You think we should check?” he asked.

Martin looked around the basement, and his eyes landed on a small table against the wall. Sitting on it was an old cassette player, dusty but, at first glance, still in working condition. Beside it lay an extension cord, its cable trailing toward the wall.

“Dan,” he said, “you think there’s still power in the house?”

Dan thought for a moment, then pulled a voltage tester from his pocket, something he always carried for work.

“Let me check…” He held the device to the socket, and the indicator lit up. “Yeah, it looks like part of the wiring is still alive.”

Martin nodded, though he found it strange. The house had been empty for years – so if there was still electricity, someone must have made sure of it.

He ran his hand across the cassette player’s surface, leaving a clean streak in the thick layer of dust. The device looked old, but it wasn’t rusted or damaged. The tapes inside the box didn’t seem overly worn either.

Without much hesitation, Martin tested the cassette mechanism: the buttons stuck a bit, but overall, it seemed functional. He opened the tape compartment, checked the transport mechanism, and inserted one of the tapes. A click, followed by a soft hum as the tape began to play. Dan was tense, expecting to hear a voice or music, but instead, there was only indistinct rustling. Then came a faint, muffled knocking, like someone striking a wall or door. Martin glanced at Dan but didn’t stop the playback.

The rustling gave way to a strange sound muffled, barely audible laugh. Dan felt a shiver crawl down his back. The laugh sounded unnatural, as if it came from several places at once.

Then, a voice.

“Help me…” it whispered through the static. The voice trembled, distorted, as if the speaker were very far away.

“Shit,” Dan whispered, recoiling.

The tape continued spinning… The voice grew louder, clearer.

“Please, help me… he’s coming…”

Suddenly, the cassette player crackled, and a loud, sharp scratching sound rang out – like fingernails raking across wood. The basement light flickered, casting twitching shadows on the walls. Martin quickly hit the “Stop” button, and a ringing silence filled the basement.

Dan was breathing heavily, his heart pounding in his chest. He stared at the cassette player, unable to look away.

“This… this is just an old recording, right?” His voice was hoarse.

Martin remained silent, his finger still on the button. He didn’t like what was happening. At that moment, he too felt an inexplicable sense of unease.

A faint rustle sounded from the corner. Dan jerked, whipping his head around.

“Did you hear that?” he whispered. Without waiting for his partner, he bolted up the stairs.

Dan shot out of the basement. The air above felt unexpectedly cold, but it brought no comfort. He barely registered that his legs were carrying him away from the stairs, away from that place, away from the oppressive darkness steeped in the scent of dampness and old wood. His mouth was dry, his palms sweaty, fingers trembling like he had just escaped a nightmare that had somehow become real.

He didn’t even look back at Martin, who remained below, still intrigued by what had happened. Dan ran into the main hall, tripped over a loose floorboard, and grabbed the nearest wall to keep from falling. He tried to slow his breathing, but his lungs felt tight, refusing to let him take a full breath. It felt as if the entire house was watching him, creaking in its beams, sighing through its drafts, peering through the cracks in the boarded-up windows.

“What’s wrong with you two?” Martin’s voice called out.

Dan turned sharply. Martin stood in the basement doorway, holding the dusty cardboard box in his hands. His face remained calm, but a note of caution showed in his eyes.

“That… That wasn’t just an old recording,” Dan said, wiping his face with a trembling hand, trying to brush away the sticky fear. “You heard it too! That voice…”

He stopped short, remembering how desperate, how hopeless that whisper had been – trapped in the swirling noise and static. The words still echoed in his ears – “He’s coming.” Who? What?… Dan clearly didn’t want to know the answer to the question he had just asked himself.

Martin exhaled heavily, shifting the box to his other hand. He looked thoughtful but moved without panic, trying to make rational sense of what had just happened.

“We need to show this to the site supervisor,” Martin finally said, nodding toward the box. “Let him decide what to do with it.”

Dan said nothing. He glanced around once more, listening to the house as if expecting it to respond. Inside, it was quiet – but behind that silence, he sensed a looming, almost tangible danger.

“Yeah,” he finally exhaled. “Let’s get out of here.”

The construction company’s office was located on the outskirts of town, surrounded by garages and warehouses full of building materials. The two-story building, erected back in the mid-20th century, looked like it needed repairs itself: peeling paint on the walls, creaky wooden steps, and an old coffee machine that dispensed drinks with a rusty aftertaste. Time moved especially slowly in this office, and even the air seemed steeped in decades of history.

Behind a desk cluttered with papers and yellowed blueprints sat their senior site manager, Matteo – a heavyset, gruff man in his fifties with a bald spot and a perpetually displeased expression. He rarely showed emotions beyond irritation and preferred short, direct conversations. When Dan and Martin walked in, he lazily looked up, noting the younger worker’s anxious appearance.

“What’s wrong with you two?” he grumbled, furrowing his brow.

Martin silently placed the box on the desk.

“We found this in the basement of that old house on Park,” he said briefly. “Tapes. We played one of them…”

Matteo grunted, eyeing the box with suspicion, then opened it. Inside, along with the tapes, were several yellowed sheets of paper with handwritten notes, some smudged by moisture. The paper looked like it had been sitting there for decades.

“What’s on them?” he asked, taking out one of the tapes.

Dan swallowed, unsure how to find the right words. That voice still echoed in his mind.

“There’s… a voice on the recording. Someone asking for help. And… sounds, like someone’s trapped inside.”

Matteo raised his left eyebrow, then glanced at the tape recorder that Martin had placed beside the box. For a moment, a heavy silence settled over the room, broken only by the soft buzzing of a fly at the window. He considered their words, realizing that if they were right, this might delay the scheduled demolition.

“So, you decided to play detective?” he muttered, scratching his head. “Now what?”

Martin looked him straight in the eye.

“We thought it’d be best to put the demolition on hold,” he said. “These tapes might be important. If there really is something strange going on… better let the police handle it.”

Matteo thought for a moment, then slowly nodded. He didn’t believe in the supernatural, but years on the job had taught him one thing – if something feels off, it’s better not to ignore it.

“All right,” he said at last, leaning back in his chair. “I’ll call the police. Let them figure it out.”

A few hours later, the box of tapes had been delivered to the local police station. The officer at the front desk, an older man with a tired look in his eyes, reluctantly logged the item into the evidence register. It seemed like a pointless formality to him – after all, who would care about some old tapes from a crumbling house?

“Put it in storage,” he muttered to a younger officer, who yawned as he picked up the box and carried it into a back room. There, among dusty folders, forgotten evidence, and long-abandoned case files, the box found its place on one of the lower shelves.

“Just more junk,” the junior officer mumbled, lazily entering the data into the computer.

The room was quiet – so quiet that he thought he heard a faint noise in the depths of the archive, something between a rustle and a barely audible sigh. He paused, listened, then shook his head and walked out, dismissing it.