Coin-Operated Machines (13 page)

FIRE!

Brock woke to the smell of black smoke and the sound of fire eating at the walls.  Both walls opposite them were blanketed in raging flames.  Billowing smoke blinded half the guest house by the time he bolted awake.  Brock shook Hannah awake.  She screamed, horrified at the turn of events.  There was only one thing to do, and Brock jumped on the opportunity before it was too late.  He raced to the barricade at the front door, shouting, "Come on, help me!  We can't stay here!"

Peeling off chairs and
shoving aside the table, it was barely a minute later they were sprinting into the open air free of choking smoke and the intensifying heat.  The roof caved in with the loud crash of timbers, the structure sending out a great poof of smoke into the sky after the collapse.  When they stopped to catch their breaths near the street, a rifle was drawn in their direction.  "Don't move."

Brock gasped,
then raised up his hands.  Hannah did the same. 

One man turned into three others, two of them
being women. They were the same individuals from the mountain climbing store yesterday.  One of them was carrying a gas can with a cruel smile chiseled on his face.  The group sized them up for a moment before the same speaker instructed the others, "Pick their pockets."

The woman rummaged through Brock's pants and stole his wallet and Hannah had lost her purse in the car fire.  He watched the woman's eyes light up at the hundred dollars cash in his wallet.  She sorted through the credit cards with bedazzled eyes,
her mouth drawn open as if to praise the heavens for such a generous prize.  The other woman shunned Hannah for turning up nothing, even aiming the rifle's muzzle in her direction.  "You're not hiding anything from us, are you, lady?  Cough up every penny."

"My purse was in the car when you set it on fire."

The comment devastated the woman.  Then she turned mean again.  "Then it looks like we got what need.  These two are useless."

The two men were conferring with each other, talking under their breaths, and then they
each approached Brock and Hannah.  One of them said, "Start walking down into the woods.  Make a straight line.  And don't try and run.  We have four guns trained on your backs."

The nozzle was jabbed into Brock's back.  "Don't try anything.  Get walking."

Hannah shot Brock a face plagued with horror, and it sent the worst sensation through him.  Panic wasn't enough to describe the creeping dread, the knowing of something horrible could happen and they were helpless against it.  They were taking them into the woods to kill them, Brock believed.  There was no other reason for them to walk on ahead of the group.  Trembling now, it was hard to keep a solid footing on the rocky terrain, though they somehow walked together down into the woods. 

Brock
waited for the four to say something to indicate their intentions, but they remained silent.  Brock toyed with the idea of running.

You
won't get far.  The scopes on those rifles, they could play sniper from any distance and hit you right between the eyes.

Rage brewed in his blood
knowing their death was so undeserved and yet it would happen anyway. 
I can't die like this
, he kept telling himself,
Hannah can't die like this
. 

Lie to them
, he conspired. 
It's money they want. 

Ahead, the woods dipped
at a downward incline, and there was a roaring river frothing below them. 

This is where they're going to execute us.

Hesitation gripped him, turning his feet into heavy cinder blocks.  His body did everything to deter him from taking those next steps towards the river.  Hannah was weeping.  The four still didn't speak, and that's when Brock knew if he didn't try anything now, he'd be punching in his own death ticket. 

"I
know where there's more money.  I have a sister who lives here.  I was visiting her.  She's rich as hell.  She used to be in movie production.  She's the kid of Gene Richards.  You ever heard of Gene Richards?"

"He's lying," one of them said.  The
words were as sharp as gravel hitting the undercarriage of a car.  "They always make up shit before we shoot them."

Hannah cried harder now
. 

"Check my driver's license. 
I'm Brock Richards.  I'm the son of Gene Richards.  We have more money, but it's not out here."

"He's trying to stall
us."

"He is stalling."

"I say we take what we got and move on before
he
shows up."

"We can't hide from
that bastard forever."

"I'll fucking try."

Brock eyed the ground for a stone, a broken tree limb, any weapon that he could possibly use.  Three feet to his left, he discovered a good sized tree limb the size of a baseball bat.  Hannah's face was wet from crying. 

"All right, which one dies first?"

The question sparked him into action.  Bending his knees, leaning forward, grasping the tree limb with his hands, Brock swung it hard. The meat of it smacked the woman behind him across the face.  The connection caused her lights to go out, both eyes turning into the back of their sockets.  She faltered backwards. 

"Get down, Hannah!"

Brock swung again, his weapon baring down like a sledgehammer upon the man's back who tried to shoot Hannah.  The blow sent him onto all fours, leaving him disoriented.   

Two more enemies
were left to dispatch, but Brock was confused by what happened next. 

One
of them shouted, "Shit, he's here!  He's right behind us! 
Ruuuuuuuun!
"

An object whooshed through the
air.  The object was a blur, it spun so fast and from so far away.  Brock still hadn't seen who they were talking about.  All he witnessed was the woman's neck stuck to the tree by an axe.  She bled from both mouth and neck, what spurted out in generous sprays.  Twitching and with both hands down at her sides, a man charged from the woods.  The hulking rage of a man re-claimed the weapon, ripping back the axe and making the woman's body fall down like a rag doll.  The removal nearly took the woman's head clean off. 

Brock caught the man's beefy figure, his neck thicker than the widt
h of his head.  His face was a furious collection of hard lines all bent to inspire fear, but the eyes, there was something off about them.  They were missing the human element, they were buried so deeply in the sockets removing all character and lending the stranger a callous, ice cold killer look. 

Rifle shots cracked
.  Brock ducked, covering himself over Hannah, taking in the sharp smell of burnt cordite, his ears aching from the deafening blasts and the slew of curses and warnings echoing from every direction.  Before Brock could check if it was clear to run, he was lifted off of Hannah by a force too strong to reckon with, and before he could see anything else, he was thrown hard backwards.  His hands slashed at empty air, his legs slipping over wet leaves and rocks.  He plummeted forward, taking a tumble.  The force of the momentum pitched Brock into the icy cold river. 

A
REAL EYE OPENING EXPERIENCE

Willy
Hawker sat in his car disturbed by the idea that his uncle would bequeath him an empty piece of land.  A piece of land that was supposed to be burned down fifteen years ago.  The city had bulldozed the remains of Tim Hawker's property just days after the fire happened.  As Tally hinted to earlier before the reading of the will, the highway project had taken over Tim's property.  So what the hell was he driving to see, a stretch of beaten road?  He was curious enough about it to follow the directions on the piece of paper.  This was proving to be quite interesting.  What would he do with this piece of property?  If it was a highway, was he in charge of its maintenance?  That couldn't be right, Willy thought.  Somebody had made an error.

"That's got to be it," he said to himself, stepping out of the car and heading
back towards the historical house.  "I have talk to that guy again.  There's obviously been a mistake.  No other way to explain it.  This is too crazy."

Up the stairs,
Willy suddenly didn't want to be here anymore.  He had bequeathed a burden. 
In the back of your mind, you were really hoping there was something left from his mechanical collection. 

Don't kid yours
elf.  It all burned.  It's gone forever.

Willy
opened the door quietly so as not to disturb the proceedings.  He expected Neil Hunter to be divvying out whatever monies were due to the family.  He didn't expect the room to be silent.  Nobody breathed either, because everybody was sprawled out on the floor.  The chairs were scattered, as if those sitting in them had tried to run from something in a big hurry.  On top of that, everybody who was here earlier was on the ground, and in pieces.  Torsos without their extremities had landed on the ground, their arms, legs, and heads shot out across the room as if their bodies had been cruelly dismembered.  Sticky blood decorated the walls and dripped from the ceiling.  He feared whatever had done this impossible feat of murder was still here.

Willy heard the door out the back way open and close.  Willy shot forward, rushing to the
noise, towards the person who had left the building.  The man who stood in the backyard froze where he stood.  He knew he had been spotted and there was no point in running.

That man was Tally. 

His uncle's old friend from high school.

Tally had an explanation that wanted to leave his lips, but the man couldn't gather the gall to spill it.  His eyes were bulging in terror.  The confidence in
Tally's demeanor and that friendly "I once knew you uncle" bit had vanished.  Tally was a man caught in an unlawful act.   The man's body was poised as if he could take off running towards the cars parked on the back square of gravel, but Tally didn't move. 

What Tally said Willy couldn't have
been predicted under any circumstance. 

"I don't have much longer to live, so why not tell you what I know, right?  I did it for one reason, so I got what I wanted.  Anymore good that could've come out of this situation has dried up."

Willy's body burned with a mix of shock and incredulity.  This guy was clearly crazy, he thought.  Tally had somehow cut up those people.  Willy couldn't trust the man.  Tally's motives for murder were obvious.

"You did it for the money.  You killed them for the inheritance."

Tally didn't hear those words.  "You're here.  Tim got what he wanted.  I've done my part.  I got to see my family one more time.  I got to hold my grandkids one more time.  Tim honored his end of the deal, and I honored mine.  Now it's time for me to die—"

The next sight would repeat in Willy's mind during the many miles he peeled
out down the road.  Willy kept shaking his head, taking double breaths and gasping because he forgot the basic function of breathing.  Every one of Tally's extremities, including his head, ejected themselves from his body at a high pressure, the body parts tearing through his suit and spraying so much blood it misted the man's surroundings for many yards.  Willy didn't stick around long enough to see the man's limbs hit the ground.  Willy had already fled to his car.

RUDE AWAKENING

Brock didn't open his eyes right when he returned to consciousness.  Somehow keeping his eyes shut lessened the pain in his skull.  His body was one large muscle that had been bruised and left tender.  He was laying on an uncomfortable bed of jagged edges.  River rocks.  The sound of rolling waters surrounded him.  Brock shivered in the mist that kept spraying him.  He stank of the woods, of untreated water, of wet bark and the rich scent of mud and clay.  Coughing up a mouthful of rancid tasting water and stomach bile, Brock finally opened his eyes.  The sky was a pale gray, shedding light that matched the color of the quartz stones he was splayed on.  He was slow to rise, but once he remembered how he came to be here, he forced himself up quickly, climbing the loose rocks and hiking to the top of the bank.  Arriving there, Brock had a good view of the distant horizon.  The river channeled for miles, and it was impossible to know how far he'd been shot down the current from where he'd fallen in. 

Gaining
his breath, he shouted with everything he had left in his lungs.  "
Han-nah!
 
Hannah, where are you?
"

He
ran forward, going the direction against the flow of the channel.   After stumbling over many rocks, he arrived back at the mouth of the woods and kept running. "
Hannah!
 
Han-nah!
"

Brock stopped after half a mile, but it wasn't his body that gave up.  Ahead of him, t
he leaves below the trees were covered in dark crimson spatters in a wide circular pattern.  Nobody was else was here.  He searched for tracks of blood, trying to find a telltale path, and not locating anymore blood, he had no idea where to look for Hannah next. 

His shout
s carried through the trees and hovered on the wind for miles.  "You better not harm her!  You hear me? I'll kill you myself!  I'll kill you!"

Brock deci
ded to backtrack even farther, heading back to that yellow house.  He was shivering and cold to the bone during the trek.  He'd catch his death if he didn't dry off.  After wandering around for what felt like an hour, he found the house.  Entering the place, he located the bedroom, and shrugging the awful corpse smell, and he dug through the oak drawers and borrowed a man's wool sweater, black jeans, and a pair of running shoes that were half a size too big. 

When he slung off his old pants, he heard a jangle.  He reached in and found a quarter and a dime.  He
put the change in his pocket out of habit.  Dried and feeling warm again, Brock hit the road on foot.  He ran onto the main road, hoping he'd come upon more houses, buildings, or civilization. 

Brock cleared a
nother two miles before he coming upon another person. Seeing something ahead, Brock's pace was belittled to a slow jog.  He was out of breath and his lungs panged with each intake of air.  The thing that kept him going was the hatchback truck with wooden slats on the sides built up to create a barrier over the truck bed.  The truck's engine was running.  He approached the vehicle slowly.  Brock breached the gap between him and easy transportation.  He would demand the driver to take him to the police station.

What he saw
in the truck bed caused him to stiffen.  Three corpses were splayed in the trunk.  Each of them were slathered in blood, almost swimming in it, because they were hacked into pieces.  No corpse was left intact.  Two of the severed arms and the shoulder sockets gleamed of metal at their meaty stumps, and beneath the twisted bolts of tissue, were the curls of steel springs. 

"My God," he kept muttering to himself. 
Brock failed to make sense of it, so he ran to the driver's seat, though he didn't find anybody inside. A large bloody knapsack was strewn on the passenger side, the top bent so he could see what was inside.  It was stocked with coins, credit cards, dollar bills, credit cards, rings (and one of them was Hannah's, a promise ring her sister made her wear vowing to never marry anybody ever again), and random jewelry. 

He
got Hannah. 

But she wasn't in the truck. 

Then where is she?

Hearing the jarring snap of a branch
crack under a hard footstep, Brock hunkered back down into the woods, kneeling low, holding his breath, and keeping watch. 

There he was, he thought, the man with the axe. 
The axe head was golden, though the surface was sullied by thick congealing blood.  The burly man was over six feet tall with the stature of a hearty lumber jack.  The man scanned the horizon, the patches of woods, and up the road, turning over every hideaway in the area.  Somebody had gotten away from him, Brock thought.  Was it him, Brock wondered, or was it Hannah, or one of the four robbers?  The way the bodies were mutilated in the truck bed, there was no way telling how many people were in there or who it really was dead. 

Brock
prayed the man didn't find him. 

There must be no police if he can drive around with dead bodies in his truck.  For God's sake, there's blood
trickling down the bumper.

The killer marched back to his truck, slinging the axe into the back of the truck,
done with killing for now. The beast of a man took the wheel again.  Taking it out of park, he sped away. 

Brock
stepped out of the cover of the woods after he was certain the man wouldn't catch him in his rearview mirror.  He wasn't sure if he should run after the truck or form a better plan.

I have no plan. 
I have no place to go.  Hannah could be in those woods.  She could be wherever that bastard took her.  She could be dead.  I don't know!

The sense of loss
began to sink in.  He wouldn't marry Hannah.  What if he found her in pieces?  And what was with the steel springs in that man's arm sockets in the truck bed?  Had he imagined it?

Angel was here somewhere too
, he remembered.  Was she already a victim?  He had nothing to go on.  He could be miles from town, and where did that leave him? 

Brock
kept jogging forward in a determined pace. 

Keep moving, and y
ou'll find someone that can help you. 

His wish was ill-rewarded.  Up ahead, the truck that had just
drove off came back, the tires squealing, the truck bed rocking back and forth, jostled by the vehicle's increasing speed. 

He knows I'm here!

Brock broke for the woods, dashing for another place to hide. 
Instead of running, he listened and waited.  Nobody was coming.  The man with the axe had overlooked him, or hadn't seen him to begin with. 

He
spotted a shed that was the size of two full-sized bedrooms with a roof over the top through the trees ahead.  Encouraged by the good hiding place, his feet guided him on.  There could be a phone inside, though the prospect was grim.  He was enticed by the shelter anyway.    That was until he stepped in leaves that weren't solid ground beneath.  Squishing on something semi-solid, he landed on his hands.  Turning his gaze to the ground, he caught the blackened face underneath the pointy ends of wilted leaves.  The eyes were gone, the sockets gulfs of red syrup.  The corpse's mouth was wide in a permanent scream. 

"
Gawd!
"

Brock
backed up from the body by scooting on his hands and the balls of his feet.  Horrified, Brock retreated to the shed, throwing the door behind him closed, locking it, and breathing in air that was tainted with stirred-up nastiness that seemed to be stuck to his clothes.  He took stock of the shed.  No guns, no telephone, and nothing useful beyond a pair of binoculars on a table.  The table was made of cheap stock, and judging by the deck of Bicycle game cards and the half-empty bottle of whisky on the table, and the ashtray with the nubs of cigars, he supposed someone played a good game of solitaire while viewing the woods.  Not just the woods, he learned, noticing the thick book called "The Field Guide of Local Birds" propped in the corner on the floor. 

He
grabbed the binoculars.  "Let's see what the hell I can find out there."

The binoculars turned out to be long range, the kind used for hunting quail or stalking deer. 
After guessing what the adjustments did, Brock scanned through miles of woods. 

"
Gaah!
"

He folded over, pressing his back up against the wall underneath the open window he peered out of after catching the man with the axe skulk about the woods.  He had no idea from what locale or distance the man was moving to or from.  The split-second image of the man with a shirt sodden in fresh blood,
Brock couldn't help but imagine it was Hannah's blood. 

What else could he be looking for?

You, you idiot.

Forced to check out the window again,
Brock scanned the woods for the man again and failed to locate him. 

If he comes through that door, you jump out
of that window and run.

Brock
eyed the bottle of "High Rise" brand whiskey, imagining his hand grabbing it and breaking it over the man's head and then throttling the man's neck until he confessed where he'd taken Hannah.  Keeping himself together, Brock listened again.  Hearing nothing, he decided to keep studying the distance.  Looking through the woods, he came upon a residential area.  During his inspection, he kept gasping, choking on words and appall at each landmark and building he registered.

He glimpsed an
old man who had blown his brains out.  The corpse was sitting on a rocking chair on the front porch.  An emaciated body was splayed on a rooftop clutching a sign that said HELP ME.  Every other finger clutching the sign was missing.  A priest in full garb was hanging from a nearby tree from a noose, rotting in the color of green marble and black bruises.  Beyond the houses, Brock got a look at a section of town, namely a grocery store, a strip of restaurants, a library, and a school yard.  All of it was covered in the aftermath of a large scale riot.  Not a single window remained unbroken or vehicle left unturned.  He caught four different ATM machines smashed and left in the middle of the road.  A local bank had been shot up by hundreds, if not thousands, of bullet holes.  A Jeep had crashed through the front of that bank, the inside looted and charred.  Trails of blood matched the evidence of violence among the sidewalks.  Hundreds of corpses were laying about rotting and puckering in the sun.  They were violently killed.

What Brock stayed on the longest was the nearby
park filled with children sitting on swing sets.  Their hands clenched the chains, righting themselves up.  Their backs were stooped and their heads pointed down in a death pose.  More children were strewn on the bottom of slides in piles, or laying on the ground below the monkey bars, as if sleep had suddenly caught them.  Every corpse was growing fetid in the sun. 

 
Looking beyond the playground, he caught a woman on her porch steps cradling her husband.  Both had slit their wrists, their blood painting the porch and steps.   

Just what the hell happened here?

He kept checking the distance for the man with the axe and came up with nothing. 

He's gone. 

And so is your chance at finding Hannah.

Suddenly he
overheard a breath expelled nearby.  It was one of expressed awe.  Brock was leery to follow it, but he was also too desperate and on edge to ignore it.  He exited the shed quietly and stalked deeper into the woods.  It wasn't long before Brock spotted the man staring up at the tree with his arms rigid at his sides. 

It escaped Brock
's lips, "A-are you okay?"

The man turned around
as if rudely disturbed.  Soon, a caught expression spread upon the man's face.  He was the same age as Brock.  He had graying hair on the verge of becoming white.  He wore a black shirt and white khaki pants.  The man's eyes were wild and always wide open as if everything he saw was beyond belief. 

The stranger spoke meekly
, "You're not going to hurt me, are you?"

The question struck
Brock as odd.  "No, of course not.  Hey, can I ask you a question?  Have you seen a woman in her fifties?  Blonde hair.  Skinny.  Her name's Hannah.  We were robbed by these four people earlier.  Man, it was a nightmare."

"I haven't see anyone."  He sensed the man's posture ease up
.  "Let me ask you a question. How long have you been here?  In Blue Hills, I mean."

"Since yesterday."

"Oh."  He was confused.  "And you said you were robbed by four people?"

"Yes, and I think this man with an axe
attacked them."

"Where is he?
"  Nervous, "Is he here?  When did you see him last?"

"
Maybe.  I'm not sure.  He's out there somewhere.  I saw him minutes ago."

Brock observed the steel
square installed in the tree.  He was suddenly captivated by what the other man had been studying.  It matched the slots over the telephones.  "Do you know what the hell is on that tree?  Who put it there?"