Coin-Operated Machines (11 page)

THE HOUSE

The front door was open a crack.  Hannah urged it all the way open with two fingers, as if using two fingers denounced the notion of trespassing.  Raising her voice, she spoke into the entryway. "Is anybody home?  Please, we need help.  I'm sorry to enter your place like this, I know it's rude...
ah God
,
what is that smell
?"

Brock
could hear her throat close upon taking in the offal.  He too was knocked back a half-step by the punch of raunchy air.  Brock covered his hand over his mouth to fight the waft.  Something was dead, Brock evaluated, and it stank like the animal blood in packaged raw meat. 

Brock
insisted, "I want you to stay here and let me check it out."

He
couldn't believe what he had just said, though he wouldn't dream of taking it back.  It was all a matter of finding the nearest phone and dialing the police, he reminded himself.  He entered the living room, looking at the loveseat, the recliner, and the large screen TV sandwiched by two shelves of DVD's.  Brock continued to follow his nose, the knot of apprehension in his belly growing heavier as his eyes waved from one end of the room to the other in preparation of any sudden movements or the owner crouching down with a shotgun aimed at him. 

He
called out once again, "My name is Brock Richards.  I need to use your phone.  I apologize for intruding.  Is anybody here?"

After no responses
, Brock decided the owners weren't home. 

Then
Brock caught the phone hanging against the far wall next to what looked to be the entrance into a kitchen.  Running to it, he also discovered the answer to the other question lingering in his mind. 

The
source of the smell. 

Hannah kept calling him, and
Brock didn't answer.  Staked in place by a bout of shock, Brock analyzed and re-analyzed the corpse of the man on the floor.  The body was face-first on the ground.  Palms turned back so the insides were facing up.  No struggle, it seemed; there wasn't a fleck of blood beyond what had soaked into the man's clothing.  Between his shoulder blades, a square hole the size of a shoe box was carved out clean, as if performed by an instrument that could carve perfect right angles into bone.  Someone had just reached in and pulled whatever out in the shape of a box.  The flesh inside the hole was pink and gummed up from puckering in the open air for too long.  The flesh itself was slowly turning shades of blue, purple, and blackening in sections where blood had congealed.  What he had been smelling was vile gases escaping the corpse's body. 

Brock's jaw ached
from his mouth hanging open so long.  His hands were clutching the counter for grip.  This house was supposed to be a salvation, not a crime scene.  Spotting the phone again, he rushed right to it, clutching onto the handle, his hands slippery with nervous sweat.  He pulled back so hard, he ripped the phone from the wall.  The device crashed to the floor, the receiver and the box breaking into many plastic pieces.

"
Oh shit
."  Bending down to pick it up, he noted the metal plate over the phone's number keys and the thin slot in the center.  The slot reminded him of the hole you'd see for a coin to be inserted into a pay phone.  He tossed the phone aside, fearing if he touched the altered device, his hands would become contaminated.  "What in the hell is going on here?"

Hannah called
out again, more insistent and on the verge of a scream, "Brock, answer me right now! Where are you?"

"I'm
right here!"  He shouted back, using up what little gall left in him to speak.  "I'm right here, Hannah."

She detected his location and began stepping into the house with
determination.  Ripped from his throat without conceiving the words, he warned her, "Wait in there, Hannah.  Do not come in this room.  I mean it."

"What's happen
ing in there?" 

She was panicked, but so was he, and if he was going to maintain any sense
of calm in the next few moments, he had to perform his best version of damage control possible.  Stepping into the next room in search of a blanket to cover the corpse with, his blood boiled when he heard her scream again.  Too late.  She had stepped into the room.  Hannah had seen the body.  When he re-entered the room, she threw herself against him and unleashed hysterical tears. 

Brock
hugged her, shielding her face from the corpse and talking low to soothe her.  "It's okay.  I'll cover it up.  You won't have to see it again.  I'm sorry you had to see the body.  It's okay now.  Everything's going to be fine.  I'm here."

Mumbling nonsense,
the words she said next were lost in a soup of tears.  He stroked her head and let her cry while he sized up the rest of the scene for clues.  No blood on the walls.  No obvious murder weapon.  The box carved out of the man's back, it seemed too clean and too perfect.  The wound didn't look real.  A tool or instrument would create jagged edges, but what knife could cut into bone with such smooth precision? 

After Hannah calmed
some more, he said, "Stay in the living room.  Sit down.  I'm going to cover up the body."

Hannah heard him but didn't respond.  She simply sat down on the recliner with her head in her hands, sobering up from the cry.  Brock wasted no time locating a blanket, but also stealing a moment to himself to figure out their next move. 

They had no phone. 

There could be another phone in the house that works. 
You have to keep looking.

Brock
couldn't wrap his mind around the metal covering over the phone's number pads.  What did it mean?
 
Failing to lock onto any logic to solve the dilemma, Brock moved on to the task at hand.  He moved through the kitchen, then into a side room and located a hallway.  From there, he entered an empty bedroom.  The bed was made and everything looked untouched.  He pulled the wool blanket from the top of the bed and folded it into his arms.  He knew there was another body in the house.  The smell was too strong in the direction he was walking.

Forging on, he
kept the blanket in his hands, ready to drape it over another corpse if need be.  Brock knocked on the door.  "Is anybody in there?"
He expected no answer and didn't receive one.  Edging open the door, the pungent scent filtered free.  Brock held his breath, and clenching his body, he turned on the light.  He gasped, throwing the blanket over the naked woman lumped inside the bathtub.  The same shoe box slot was removed from her back.  Beads of gel thick blood had crawled down her backside and across her buttocks, staining the flesh.  The bathtub was otherwise clean, no other traces of blood or what kind of weapon was used. 

Brock threw the door closed. 
He returned to Hannah, immediately covering the corpse on the floor in the kitchen with a different blanket.  With the task out of the way, he noticed Hannah was staring out the nearest window, her fingers bending two blinds back to peek out. 

"Do you see anything
out there?"

"It's getting dark. 
I can't see anything."

Th
e wheels in Brock's head turned.  "I think we should pick a room in this place and hide out for the night."

"I have a better idea.  I'm sure who owned this house
has a car.  We find the keys and drive out of here.  I don't want to be in this town a moment longer than I have to.  This place is scaring me."

"
Okay, that makes sense.  Keys first, and if there's a gun in the house, we take that too."  He thought back to the naked woman in the bathroom.  "We can search the place out, but be careful going down the hallway.  I've covered the other body.  It's in the bathroom."

Hannah
began searching the kitchen for the keys.  Brock joined the search, going down into the basement.  He discovered most of the basement space was taken up by a large loom used for sewing rugs and blankets.  Through another door, Brock discovered a woodshop with a table saw, drill press, and an entire wall covered by varieties of common tools. 

He
didn't happen upon any keys, though he located a hunting knife with a five inch blade that was cased in a leather satchel.  He looped it in his belt to feel safer.

Returning up the stairs, Hannah called out, "
Hey, I found 'em!"

Brock doubled his stride and met up with her
in one of the bedrooms.  She had located the keys on top of a bureau next to a wallet.  He smiled at her and then hugged her.  "Good job.  Let's get the hell out of here."

They marc
hed out the front door together seeking a match for the keys.

NO WAY OUT

Walking down another cobbled path outside, they reached an open garage.  Inside was a Land Rover that was parked among wheel barrows, shovels, bags of mulch, cedar chips, and the necessities to inject new life into a garden.  Hannah moved ahead of him, and when she tried the first key in the vehicle, her face locked up in frustration. 

"Fucking thing, it's blocked!"

Brock stared at where the car's keyhole used to be.  A square of steel covered the slot with a slit in the center centimeters wide, the same that covered the cell phone's keys. 

Hannah leaned up against the car, channeling her distress by pounding the hood with her fists.  "What do we do now, Brock?  We're stuck in the middle of nowhere without a phone and without a way out of here.  We're screwed."

Brock shook his head.  "No we're not."

"What do you mean?"

Brock moved towards the lawn and picked up a brick from a large pile.  The owners had been in the process of laying down a new path.  Brock heaved it through the driver's side window, the glass shattering instantly upon impact. 

Hanna
h clapped her hands.  "Good thinking!"

"Despite my age, I still have moderate brain function."

Brock reached through the window and unlocked the door.  Opening it, he grabbed the keys from her hands anxiously.  His moment of victory was squelched when the key tinged against steel.  "Goddamn-it!"

Hannah
examined the keyhole herself.  "There's just no way."

"I don't know how to jumpstart a car, but if I did, I have a feeling there would be something preventing me from doing so
too."

"None of this makes sense."

"I think we should go inside and get a few locked doors between us and the outside."

"But what are
we hiding from?  I know there's people out there, but maybe this shit is what's making them carry guns.  There's something else happening, and I want to know what it is."

Brock had other questions. 
"Why is Angel here, of all places?  So she sent me a letter, wanting me to get in touch with her.  That was days ago.  Maybe she was calling out for help."

"Then why didn't she outwardly tell us this was
happening? Why did she lead us into this dangerous situation?"

"I have to find
Angel either way."  Brock was determined to win back his sister, but also to escape Blue Hills with everybody safe.  "When we find her, that's the first thing I'll ask her.  Just what the hell is going on."

"I don't know who can
explain the steel panels over the phones and the keyholes.  Angel didn't do any of that.  Angel didn't make that man at the mountain climbing store take our fifty cents and run.  And she certainly didn't have anything to do with the four who burned up our car.  She's in the middle of something weird here, and it's a strange coincidence that while this is going on that she makes contact with you, and then off you go on a whim to see her.  There's something sinister behind what your sister contacting you."

She was scared, he kept telling himself, and she had a right to be bitter and mad at him
and his sister.  This was surreal, and he couldn't shake the feeling this was still an imaginary occurrence, a bad dream, and someone would pull back the curtain and tell them this was an elaborate magic trick.

The dead bodies aren't a magic trick.

"I admit Angel's reasons for having me come here are suspicious, but I know for certain it isn't her doing these things.  We know nothing.  We would know more if we were in town, not in these woods."

Hannah turned her head up to the sky,
what was dark purple with the sun on the very edge of the horizon ready to kiss the day goodbye.  "I guess we're not going anywhere until tomorrow."

"Right," Brock said, taking her by the arm and leading her back into the house.  "It's not like we have much choice.  The answers ar
en't here.  We calm down, lock ourselves in tight, and try and sleep."

She scoffed at the idea.  "I won't sleep in ten years."  She turned her nose.  "And I can't stand the smell of those bodies."

Brock pointed at the guest house to the right of the garage.  It was the size of a large shed.  "Then we stay in there." 

Hannah
sighed.  "I guess we have no choice."