Coin-Operated Machines (18 page)

ONLY CHANCE

"Grab it, Brock!  For Christ's sake,
grab it!
"

Reaching
and lunging forward awkwardly with extended arms, Brock dove onto his belly.  He didn't know what he was reaching for, but he was catching quick movements of an object along the carpet.  Brock pounded his hand flat onto the ground and cradled it in his closed palm like a frog he wanted to catch.  Angel kneeled beside him with desperation playing on her face.  She shouted, "Don't let it go!  Don't you let it go!"

Both his
fists were closed, and Brock didn't know which hand harbored the cherished item.  He started to feel something warm and wet in his right palm. 

"Did you get it
, Brock? Tell me you got it.  Did you get it?  Tell me, tell me!"
 
James garbled his questions.  He was on his knees, his left arm flexed, his face wrung tight, his right hand pressed over the middle of his forearm.  Blood funneled from between his fingers.  "Tell me it wasn't for nothing.  Say something, Brock!"

Angel joined in, her voice fierce. 
"Yeah, did you grab it? Show it to us. Just don't stand there looking like a jackass."

Brock
had no clue what was in his hands, feeling its weight.  If he did have the object, he feared opening his palm and the object flying out of his grasp.  The way it shifted back and forth, it felt magnetized, pressing against the walls of his palm trying to pound through to the other side of his hand.

James
insisted, "Tell me right now if you have it, Brock. I saw it heading straight for the crack of the door."  An wince from his throat, he was fighting tears.  "
Please tell me you got it
."

Brock undid his balled up hands and
revealed the coin.  "Where did this come from?"

James
removed his hand over his forearm to reveal a thin sliver of an opening.  From the outside, it didn't appear serious, but it was so deep he could see the pink inflamed tissue beneath. New blood kept pooling to the surface in dark red beads. 

"You're trying to keep it for yourself,
aren't you?" Angel closed in on him, grabbing him by the neck and squeezing so hard a
g-aack
escaped his constricted throat.  "You selfish bastard!  Give it to me.  It's mine!"

Brock
escaped her hold over his neck in one wild jerking back motion.  "I don't care whose it is, just give me a second to figure out what the hell to do with it!"

Angel slapped him
across the face with an open hand, then socked him in the gut with a meaner hit.  Driven to the ground as all the air in his lungs rushed out of him, she jumped on Brock's back, straddling him, and tried to peel his hands open.  Nails scraped his skin.  Brock lost his balance and fell forward onto his knees.  When he landed, she yipped in victory, and before Brock could register anything else, the door was thrown open.  Angel bolted out of it and threw it closed behind her shouting, "
You guys can go to fucking hell!
"

Brock reached out and
stopped the door with his hand before it closed. 

James
's face was cast in menace.  "Your sister's a real bitch."

"She didn't used to be. 
Was that a quarter I caught in my hand?"

James
checked the hallway for safety.  "Yes, it just shot out of my arm for no reason.  Why did it shoot of my arm?  It, it really hurts.  It scraped bone on the way out.  The coin was in there deep."

Brock dictated w
hat he knew, which wasn't much.  "I didn't see it happen.  I caught movement, then you both shouted at me to grab it, so I grabbed it."

"Thank God you did." 
James looked back at his bleeding arm.  "I have to get this wrapped up, but I'm not going back into that room.  I'm sure there's something at the bar I can use, a towel or something.  It stings.  I felt it work through me, from my shoulder blades, down my arm, and out it came, like the coin was drawn out." 

James
winced when a new gob of blood oozed from the thin wound.  "I think our next move is obvious after I get this cleaned up. We track down Chuck Durnham.  The axe man will give us the answers we need."

They both walked to the lobby and
stopped at the bar.  Brock stared out the openings of the boarded up windows, trying to find Angel.  She was long gone. 

So much for that.

James washed his arm off in the sink behind the bar, then tore up a towel into slivers and wrapped it tightly around his arm, grimacing through the whole ordeal.  "I know where Chuck Durnham lives.  It's not too far from here.  A mile or two at the most.  We can walk there if we're careful."

"I'm
with you.  I just hope I find Hannah before he's done anything serious to her.  I swear to God if she's not alive, I'll lose it."

James cut him off. 
"We'll hope she's okay. I'm glad I found you, Brock.  Somebody's got sense around here, finally.  I can't believe I didn't go to that man's house, even if just to snoop around and put the pieces together."

Brock pointed at his arm.  "Like why th
at quarter just shot out of your arm?"

"Be glad it wasn't you
, man.  The pain's unrelenting."

The cloth was tied around
his arm.  Spots of red were already bleeding through.  James smiled at the shelf of booze, the majority of it smashed on the floor or stolen.  He did locate a bottle of "Plankwood's Finest" scotch.  He noted the twist-cap was steel.  A slot for a coin was installed, what could accept a penny or a dime.  He tried wedging it off, but it wouldn't budge.  Turning his head from it, he smashed it against the counter, and then bashing it repeatedly, he gave up when the glass wouldn't give. 

"Now
that's bizarre."  Brock frowned, posing his hands to catch the bottle.  James tossed it to him.  The glass wasn't dented or cracked.  "It's just like that door back there, and my cell phone.  Whatever's happening, it's picking out more and more things to lock up.  We have to pay for the privilege."

James
sighed.  "They want us to pay for a drink.  They want us to pay to use phones, pay to drive, and pay to use doors."  He stared at his arms, and then holding up his hands in front of his face, he went pale.  Winded by the blood loss, he sat down on the bar stool to calm his dizziness.  "They want us to pay to live."

Brock had trouble
accepting the words he knew to be true.  He imagined this was the way detective's felt when they had a murder victim that was senselessly slaughtered, and their initial thoughts being who would do such a thing, and why? 

"Besides Chuck Durnham, is there anybody parading about town harassing and killing people?"

James thought on it.  "The people who are alive out there are fighting to the death.  If you succumb to the sleep, it's like a brain dead coma.  No thoughts.  No living.  Just nothing."  He guided Brock to the window by the arm and pointed to the body lumped against a blue mail box on the side of the road.  The body was curled up like a dead mouse.  "If you touched him, he'd be warm.  He's alive in that shell, though barely.  He's probably rotting.  Who knows how long he can stay like that before he won't come back to life.  But I have a feeling if we put money into him, he'd come to consciousness."

Brock
said, "It's so unbelievable."

"
You're right about that.  I just think it's strange when this shit started happening, it was about us needing money to live, and now, something is taking that money back.  The question is what is taking the money."

Brock stared outside, counting the bodies strewn about the steps of walkways, hunched over bus stops,
benches, open patches of grass, randomly laying about the street beached like fish carcasses.  Things didn't add up.  "So something is changing.  Whatever rules you were surviving by are now altered."

James
picked up the scotch bottle and turned it in his hands.  "More and more things are inaccessible without money."

"Well, we're not getting any
where speculating and hypothesizing.  I want answers from that Chuck guy.  I'll make him talk.  I don't care if he has an axe.  I don't care what the fuck he has."

James
gave him an incredulous look.  "I'm with you, but your sister had a point somewhere in all her bullshit.  How are two old fogies like ourselves going to intimidate a man like that?"

Imagining Hannah in the clutches of the stranger
, or as one of the lifeless bodies in the street, it deepened his determination.  Angel had already pushed aside the barricade, so he simply walked up to the front entrance doors and waited for James to follow him.  When he finally followed, Brock said, "So let's take a walk to his house and figure it out on the way there."

PHONE CONVERSATIONS

Willy peered out of the windows of his uncle's house and saw nobody in the distance.  What was he doing here?  What was he waiting for?  Even considering the horrible things he'd seen today, Willy was growing antsy.  Something could be on its way to kill him, and he wouldn't know about it.  Indecision kept Willy sitting in the living room chair beside the front window.  The grass out front was chocked full of holes, and that steam kept billowing out.  Regardless of why this was happening, it was here he stayed.  Live now and die later, or die now and stay dead later, he easily chose the best option.

So long sitting
with nothing to do, his eyes began to get heavy.  Even the occasional clack of a gunshot far off or a scream that lasted only long enough to be identified as a scream failed to keep him alert.  He was exhausted from a long day of running in terror from things.

Willy
slipped into a short-lived sleep.  When he did wake, he came to when he felt a weight in his hands and heard the crinkle of a plastic bag.  What really woke him was the sound of coins rattling against coins.  Once he computed there was a bag of money in his hands, he jerked with a start, dropping the loot onto the floor.  Coins rolled across the wooden floor, banging into walls and the legs of furniture. 

Willy
spoke the house, the only culprit.  "Who's there?  Who the hell is there?"  He peered into rooms, turning over shadows, flipping on lights, attacking corners, and questioning unknown intruders.  "Come on out!  I know you're here.  You can't hide from me.  What's the meaning of this?"

He was in the bathroom gawking at an empty shower af
ter he pulled aside the curtain when the phone rang.  Every series of rings was like a beating.  He felt his blood channel faster in his veins. 

What now?  What else fucked up is going to happen to me?

The phone kept ringing.  He let it go for ten times before he knew it wasn't going to stop until he picked it up. 

Willy
returned to the living room.  He swiped the steel fireplace poker on his way to the phone for safety's sake.  He stepped on coins as he got closer to the phone that hung on the kitchen wall.  He saw his reflection in the face of the microwave.  He looked distraught and nothing like himself.  It was as if his skin had been shrink-wrapped to his bones and his eyes were as wide as they could be. 

He tried to pick up the phone, but he couldn't pry the phone from the hook.  Steel anchors held it in place.  Steel covered the digits.  On the square of steel over the digits was a thin slit in the middle. 

The coins had woke him up.  Something or someone had given him the coins for a reason.  The phone had to be the reason.  It was a damn good guess, he thought.

He picked up a coin off the living room floor and shoved it through the hole.

The phone kept ringing.  The hooks over the receiver released themselves, and he was able to pick up the phone.  Willy said, "Um, h-hello?"

A familiar voice spoke.  It
sounded like the connection was poor and full of static.  "
Call someone/dial the number/put a coin in and talk away
."

That ended the conversation.  The talker hung up on him.
The phone was snatched back onto the hook so fast he didn't see it yanked back.  It's as if the hooks sprang forward and took back the phone.

Willy
stood there and watched the phone expecting it to ring again.  It didn't.  After a time, he walked away from the phone and stomped into the living room.  He studied the quarters scattered about the floor.  It could've been a hundred dollars in quarters, he thought. 

'
Put a coin in and talk away
.'

It was an invitation. The man's voice wasn't threatening.  It harbored excitement, the withholding of a bigger surprise.  He wasn't getting anywhere standing in place like a fool, and he certainly wouldn't get anywhere running outside to certain death.  He was wasting time.  His wife probably wondered what the hell had happened to him. 

My wife!

Willy scooped up a handful of quarters and stuck one into the phone slot.  The hooks released the phone, the steel plate came open like a door, and he had access to the digits. 
Willy dialed his home number.  After three long rings, a female voice answered.  Through a veil of fuzz, the woman's voice was muddled by the constant wind that rattled in long intervals in the background.

"Is that you, Willy?"  The way she talked, it sounded like he'd disturbed her from a deep sleep.  He expected his wife, not this crotchety sounding woman.  He waited on the line and didn't answer. 

"
It is you, Willy?/you're scared, and I know why/don't be/this is all for you/everything's for you from now on, Chuckles/you were a good boy/he didn't see you grow into a man, but now he can, Willy/now he can
/
he wasn't done living, and he wasn't done spending time with you/he's got good ideas, and lots of them
/
that's one thing about the guy/he never ran out of good ideas
."

That ended the call. 
Willy was knocked back two steps when the phone shot back onto the receiver.  The steel plate slammed down over the digits.  Willy leaned against the counter so he wouldn't fall back.  He was breathing hard, almost panting. 

"Get it together." 
Willy paused to catch his breath.  "Who was that lady?"

She called him "Chuckles."
  His uncle called him that, but who else would know that?  The answer soon came to him, though it didn't make any sense.  It was Suzie, Willy's great grandmother.  She had died when he was twelve.  She lived on the same block as his aunt and uncle did.   

"Why did I get
Suzie when I dialed my wife?"

This would be a trial and error process. 

Willy gained the courage to shove another quarter into the slot.  This time he dialed the police.  The line picked up this time.  The words sounded like the person on the other line was talking in a speeding car that was driving through a tunnel. 

"
Yeah
."

Willy scoffed at the reply.  "That's all you've got to say?  'Yeah?'  I've seen people burst into pieces and melt into nothing, and, and
—'Yeah' is all you've fucking got!"

The man sounded like he was sucking on a cigar
and really getting his mouth around it.  "
You know, I always thought the cops should be judge and jury/the cops know people/the judges in their courtroom aren't on the streets/they don't talk to people/the judges don't know how to tell truth from lies/they can't read into people/they know jack shit about their community/so I figure the cops should decide guilt or innocence/hey, I've got another idea/how about put the electric chair in the local prisons/let the cops throw the fuckin' switch/drive-thru frying/do that so the other perps out there know who's the boss/crime doesn't pay/drive-thru frying, yeah/streamline the punishments/we take back our communities/we make honest people out of the scum of the earth
."

Willy hung up.  He'd been talking, asking the man questions, but the cop wouldn't stop going on about his "drive-thru" electric chair idea. 

"Trial and error," Willy whispered to himself. 

Willy
dialed the police again after inserting another quarter.

"
/
I always thought handcuffs weren't enough/they should shock the perp every time they resist arrest/
"

The same cop was going on and on about his ideas.

Willy left the phone on the hook a moment.  He turned away from it and noticed the steel slot on the fridge.  It covered the handle and the edge of the door so it couldn't open without being unlocked.  He inserted a quarter, the hooks released, and he opened the fridge.  It was stocked with enough food to feed a family of four.  He decided to grab and a beer and before he could think of anything else, it slammed shut on its own.   

"Just
what is that
the hell
about?"

Willy
popped the tab and drank the beer anyway. 

The cold beer helped dial down his thoughts. 

"This is happening.  Okay.  This is real.  So treat it like its real.  Keep calling people."

Willy
dialed the number of his best friend.  The phone rang ten times before someone picked up.  "
I could've banged them all/I was young enough, and the girls were out there/enough pussy to fill a stadium/I had my whole life before me/I look back, and man, it makes me wonder what could've been/there's all kinds of sizes, shapes, and tastes—and believe me, they taste different/pussy, man, I could've had all kinds/but I had to get her pregnant/one mistake/one time/that's all it took
."

Willy furrowed his brow and hung up the phone. 

That clearly wasn't Steve Oaks, his best friend.  It sounded like another friend of his from high school.  A kid named Patrick.  Patrick used the phrase "Enough pussy to fill a stadium" during gym class when the boys were playing basketball and the girls were playing volleyball on the other side of the gymnasium. 

Why did the phone direct him to Patrick instead of Steve?

Willy followed many paths of logic.  Maybe he had misdialed.  The phone was dialing random people, no matter what buttons he pressed.  No, maybe the phone wasn't dialing random people, because so far, they were all people he knew at one point and time. And another point, Patrick was dead.  Suzie was dead.  The cop, he wasn't sure who he was, or if he was deceased.  One thing was for sure, not one time had the phone called someone directly. 

Only one way to find out if what's true is true.

Does this phone only call dead people? 

Let's find out.

Willy dialed Uncle Tim's phone number.  The line didn't dial.  It stayed on as if the other line had answered and didn't reply. 

"Uncle Tim?  You there?  It's Willy.  I don't know what's going on.  I
drive out here to hear a reading of the will—your will—and people are dying left and right.  You've got to help me.  I know you're dead, and this is crazy.  Yeah, it's all crazy.  I can't make sense of it, but here I am talking to you so God tell me something so I can survive this."

The line stirred
.  Then voices over voices carried on like they did outside before Jenna fell into pieces. 

"
This is your chance/you've been waiting for so long/tell him what he wants to know/the time to play is now/tell your nephew what's happening/tell him what he's in for/we're ready to start/your dreams and ideas will burn so bright.
"

Then the voices ceased.  E
ach layer quieted itself one at a time.  When it settled, there was silence on the other line.  Then someone talked.  Willy was absolutely certain it was his uncle who was speaking. 

Uncle Tim said, "
Take your money downstairs, my boy.  Get ready, because this is going to be
soooooo
much fun."