A Stir of Echoes - By Richard Matheson Page 0,2

squeezed out one of his faintly cruel smiles. "Hypnotize Elsie," he said.

"Oh, no you don't!" Elsie squealed. "I'm not going to do terrible things in front of everybody."

"I thought you didn't believe in it," Phil said, amusedly.

"I don't, I don't," she insisted. "But... well, not me." Frank's dark eyes moved. "All right," he said, "who's going to be hypnotized?"

"I wouldn't suggest me unless we want to spend the whole night here," Anne said. "Phil used to waste hours trying to hypnotize me."

"You're a lousy subject, that's all," Phil said, grinning at her.

"Okay, who's it gonna be then?" Frank persisted. "How about you, Lizzie?"

"Oh..." Elizabeth lowered her eyes and smiled embarrassedly.

"We promise not to make you take your clothes off," Frank said.

"Frank." Elizabeth was thirty-one but she still blushed like a little girl. She wouldn't look at anybody. Elsie giggled. Frank looked only vaguely pleased. Elizabeth was too easy a mark for him.

"Come on, Elsie," he said, "be a sport. Let him put you under. We won't make you do a strip tease on the kitchen table."

"You-" Ron started to say.

"Oh, you're awful!" Elsie said, delighted.

"What were you going to say, Ron?" I asked.

Ron swallowed. "I-I was going to ask Phil," he said, "you-can't make someone-do what they don't want to do, can you? I mean-what they wouldn't do? If they were awake, I mean."

"Oh, what do you know about hypnotism, Ronny?"

Elsie asked, trying to sound pleasantly amused. The acidity still came through.

"Well, it's true and it isn't true," Phil said. "You can't make a subject break his own moral code. But you can make almost any act fit into his moral code."

"How do you mean?" Frank asked. "This sounds promising."

"Well, for instance," Phil said, "if I hypnotized your wife-"

"You could make her do something wicked?" Frank asked, looking at Elizabeth pointedly.

"Frank, please," she almost whispered.

"Say I put a loaded gun in her hand," Phil said, "and told her to shoot you. She wouldn't do it."

"That's what you think," Frank said, snickering. I looked at Elizabeth again and saw her swallowing dryly. She was one of those pale and pitiable creatures who seem constantly vulnerable to hurt. You want to protect them and yet you can't. Of course Frank wasn't the easiest man in the world to live with either.

"Well, for argument's sake," Phil said, smiling a little, "we'll assume she wouldn't shoot you."

"Okay, for argument's sake," Frank said. He glanced at Elizabeth, a hint of that cruel smile on his lips again.

"But," Phil said, "if I were to tell Elizabeth that you were going to strangle her and told her that the only defence in the world she had was to shoot you right away-well, she might very well shoot you."

"How true," said Frank.

"Oh, I don't believe that," said Elsie.

"That's right," I joined in. "We have a friend named Alan Porter-he's a psychiatrist-and he gave a demonstration of that very thing. He had a young mother under hypnosis and he told her he was going to kill her baby and the only way she could stop him was by stabbing him with the knife she was holding, it was a piece of cardboard. She stabbed him all right."

"Well, that's different," said Elsie. "Anyway, she was probably just playing along with a gag."

"Look," said Phil, gesturing dramatically with his hands, "I'll prove it to you right now if you want. Just let me hypnotize you."

"No, sir," said Elsie, "not me."

"How about you?" Phil asked Ron.

Ron mumbled something and shook his head with a faint smile. "He's already half hypnotized," said Elsie, kindly.

"Can't I get me a customer?" asked Phil. He sounded disappointed.

"How about you, Frank?" I asked.

"Uh-uh," he said, smiling as he blew out cigarette smoke. "Don't want ol' Lizzie knowing what's in my dirty old subconscious."

Elsie giggled and Elizabeth pressed her lips together, having failed in the attempt to smile.

"Well, that leaves you, brother man," said Phil, looking at me.

"You don't really think you could hypnotize me, do you?" I needled.

"Don't be so darn sure," he said, wagging a finger at me. "You arrogant ones are the first to topple." I grinned, shrugging. "So what have I got to lose?" I said.
Chapter Two
FIRST OF ALL, PHIL ASKED THAT ALL THE lights be put out except for one dim wall lamp over the fireplace. Then he had me stretch out on the sofa while Ron went into the kitchen to get extra chairs. Gradually, everyone settled down. When the rustlings, comments and coughs had finally ceased, Phil spoke.

"Now I can't promise