Coin-Operated Machines (20 page)

"H
e's not getting me," Brock said.  "I'm not like the rest of you.  I have an advantage."

"We'll see,"
James said, doubtfully.  "He's stronger than you, regardless of what has or hasn't been done to you."

Approaching the house, Brock knew he couldn't wheel
Angel along.  He decided he was going to have to hide her somewhere.  Brock chose to place her behind a row of hemlocks to disguise the cart.  He prayed it was enough to keep her safe for now. 

W
ithout the cart, he hunkered low, staying behind James who decided to be the leader as they approached the house.  They hid behind a rusted out Bronco without wheels.  They looked on at the house.  It was unassuming from the outside, a ranch style abode. 

"So what do we do now?"  Brock asked, eying the house thinking it would suddenly grow legs from its foundation and charge after
them.  "It looks like nothing's going on in there.  You sure this is the right house?"

"Positive." 
James pointed at the mailbox at the end of the gravel driveway.  "You see that? It's marked Durnham."

"Okay, fine,
so what do we do about it?  Stuff him in a knapsack and throw him in the river."

"The hell if I know,"
James hissed.  "It doesn't look like he's even home."

"Better for us."  Brock started forward,
nearing the front door.  "Then he won't mind if we take a peek inside."

Brock
had a feeling Hannah was inside.  The problem, what condition would she be in if he did find her in there?

Brock's
innards clenched thinking of the assortment of things that could befall him.  He cast aside fear of personal injury.  James kept whispering, begging him to stay back, to wait a second, think this through, but he'd come this far and had seen too many dead bodies to hesitate any longer.

Brock was
on the front porch, halted by the welcome mat slathered in congealed red footprints and hunks of flesh that looked like torn ribbons.  "Jesus Christ, what is going on in here?"

"
Chuck has been busy," James said, bitter and scared because he'd been dragged to the front steps when he wasn't ready to brave the open.  "Now would you get your head out of your ass and be careful from now on?"

"
So leave if you're scared.  Go back to the talking woods, like you were when I found you."

Suddenly the
voices played around the house, circulating the perimeter like an ethereal alarm system.  Brock curled his nose at the offensive odor that accompanied the voices, the fecund net.  James smelled it too, audibly sniffing and turning his nose up.  The yellow fog was shadow colored in the night, but visible and issuing from broken bits of earth, emanating between blades of grass, and obscuring the distance.  They both had to cup their ears, the words rising to a deafening crescendo.  

"
Come inside/go ahead and die/death is near/you can't ignore the dead/the dead are here forever/for eternity/this will be humanity's end/the dead crave the thrill of your death/your agony/your horrible demise brings the damned great pleasure/our ambitions will not be forgotten.
"

Brock threw back the storm door and entered the house, surprised and grateful the door was unlocked.  The noises ceased the moment the door clapped shut behind them,
James being responsible for letting the door slam so loud. 

Brock eyed
him angrily. 

James
smiled awkwardly.  "Sorry."

The voices outside went silent. 
 

Ever
y step they took inside was matched by the give of wood underneath them.  No longer smelling the death fog outside, they encountered new awfulness in the form of sour milk, blood, and spoiled meat.  The smell harbored many warnings and stories.  The evidence of mass murder was painted on the walls in hand-shaped smears.  Pooled on the floorboards, much of the red gel had seeped through the cracks and loosened the woodwork.  There were signs of wood rot, sections soft underneath their feet.  Furniture had been overturned, chairs flung across the room, picture frames busted and face-down on the floor.  Brock noted one picture of the man with the axe was smiling.  He was a down-to-earth, regular Joe with a wife and daughter who looked to be six or seven years old.  The gold frame was sticky with black grease.  The oil from the earth.  He too had been a victim of the dead. 

Brock turned over the room and
realized what little he really did understand about these circumstances.  The evidence was clear this was something beyond reality.  This was beyond the living.  This was of the dead.  He moved on, deciding what to do next on his own.  Brock checked the bathroom, the bedroom, and the guest room, and each time, he discovered the walls and floor slathered in black oil that had dried out, staining and ruining everything. 

That left one other place to look. 

James had already beat him to the punch.  The man was three steps down the stairway that led to the basement.  Following behind him, James was retracing red footprints, layered thick from numerous bloody trips.  James stopped below on the edge of the steps, his body shrinking.  His hands were rigid at his sides, then they went to his face.  He blew out a breath, trying to prevent himself from retching.  Working up the nerve to speak, James managed to say quickly before losing his gorge, "
You don't want to go down here
."

THE ARCADE

Willy stepped out of the kitchen after hearing Uncle Tim speak to him on the phone.  His deceased relative told him to go downstairs and have fun.  What other choice did Willy have but to humor the ghost of his dead uncle?  He couldn't leave.  Leaving meant death.  So why not go downstairs?  Crossing the living room, Willy looked out the bay window at the night.  He couldn't see anything or anybody.  He felt so isolated and alone.  Willy now stood in limbo between the kitchen and living room trying to decide his next move.

Should he go downstairs?

The quarters, dimes, and nickels were spread out on the living room floor.  A dozen kids' piggy banks had been looted and smashed here. 

"I'd have a heck of a
good time with your toys if you were still around, Uncle," he said to himself.  "And if this wasn't such a fucked situation."

The coins shifted on the ground.  It was as if magnets were
beneath the floor dragging them across the room.  They clanged together, the mess of change scooting towards the hallway.  Willy hesitated to follow the coins, but he was intrigued as much as he was scared.  This house was trying to tell him something, and he better damn well listen, he thought, or else he'd end up like Jenna or any of his relatives at the reading of the will.

Imagining himself come undone limb
from limb compelled him onward.  Nearing the basement door, the change was stacked up in a huge pile in front of the basement door. 

"Gee, what are you trying to tell me, Uncle?"

A coin shot up from the pile and fired into the steel slot below the door knob.  Once the money went through, the door came open.  The coins shot forward in a mess of jangling and clanging noises.  Between the wooden footsteps, the coins rattled down to the basement onto the concrete floor, as if sucked in.  What noises Willy heard filter up from the basement had him taking careful and deliberate steps down each stair.  Willy clutched the handrail, his ears trained to that familiar chiming, dinging, and ruckus of the mechanical arcade calling out to him.  Reds, whites, and blues flashed about the basement, the space that seemed to stretch on a lot longer than what was physically possible in conjunction with the size of the house.  It was that moment he didn't care about reality, nor did he fear for his life anymore.  This was his childhood.  His favorite and most cherished memories were right here before him.  Without realizing it, his pockets were lined with coins until they bulged to near breaking.  Willy stepped into the mechanical arcade with eyes filled with intense joy.  It was that moment he'd forgotten about who had died, or how he came to be here.

Coins slipped from his fingers into the mechanical slots.  Machines surrounded him
. Aisles and aisles of them.  The head and chest of the mannequin named Madame Trousseau read his fortune within the standing wooden box, her Louisiana bayou drawl heavy as her truncated lines were read with mechanical fervor.  "
Your future is bright.  Your love life with be plentiful.  Your pocketbook will overflow with riches.  Everything is yours for the taking, Willy
."

Within a
nother wooden box that was chest high, a glass menagerie showed plastic figurines belonging to a circus play out a show.  Lions were tamed by daring clowns.  Jugglers juggled pins with fake flames attached to the pins, what were orange light bulbs flickering on and off at the tip to mimic fire.  A contortionist was bending her feet completely forward, and they were touching her face.  Clowns frolicked about the stage as the audience ate their popcorn and smiled with their painted on smiles.  Each figurine was hand-crafted, every detail meticulously done by hand.  On some of them, the paint had lost its luster over time, though, giving it a vintage look.  Sounds of music and laughter were on a looping soundtrack. 

Willy was whisked away by the other machines that begged for the change in his pockets.  A steel handlebar
was on a wooden perch for the customer to squeeze.  Above it, flashing red lights displayed the words: "FEATS OF STRENGTH."  The levels ranged from "Wimp," "Pansy," "Amateur," "Strong," "Powerhouse," and "Colossus" with matching cartoon pectorals displaying the range of strengths.  A "Hoot Mon" machined displayed a figurine in raggedy clothes on top of green turf playing golf.  Two brass knobs stuck out of the box console, what the player could use to control how the raggedy man swung the club and whether you got a hole in one.  "Love Tester" had red, pink, purple, and blue lights flashing along the gauge that went from "COLD FISH" to "LOVE MACHINE."  A speed bag used in boxing was propped head level, designed where one could sock it a good one to make the light flash to the highest level of manliness.  A pinball-like box showed a set of bowling pins down the wood stretch, but instead of a bowling ball, one used a ski ball to knock down the pins in the game called "STRIKE LANE."  Two wooden rifles pointing into a box showed a paper duck flying across the wall, the words painted in black over the wooden box reading "Duck Hunt."  "GOLD DIGGER" was a box filled with sand and cheap watches and jewelry.  "Mills Imperial Shocker" had an electrical current connected to two metal handgrips.  "Shock 'Till You Drop!"  "Buzz!"  "Zrrrrt!" were written on the wooden backdrop, showing people's heads buzzing with lightening forks.  Willy laughed to himself as he bent down to look through the telescope looking box.  For a quarter, he could peep on a woman changing in a dressing room.  The photos were black and white.  The longer he flipped through the images, the dark haired woman removed article after article of clothing without actually showing anything beyond PG-13.  Before long, it showed a man in a suit being slapped by the woman by the time he reached the end of his quarter. 

More machines!  More machines! 
More machines!

Vintage slot machines displaying Limes, Watermelons, and Cherries we
re being cranked on their own.  The slots spun over and over as change kept spilling out of the trays to overflowing.  "Pace's Races" was designed like a pinball machine.  He could look down through the glass and watch a row of jockeys on horses race.  The trick was to bet on the winner.  There were many gambling wheels among the machines, what were large wheels showing numbers like a roulette table.  One quarter bought a spin.  Wooden pin ball machines that were over fifty years old stood between many mechanical machines.  Gumball machines offered gum for the price of a penny, the gum encased in glass and steel, looking like it came from a rich garish man's parlor.  Willy had counted ten old fashioned cigarette machines.  Willy stopped at the Hershey's Candy Bar Dispenser showing a fat man in a black business suit with chocolate smeared on his fat cheeks. Next, Willy ogled the red vending machine sized Coca-Cola machine that showed a Marilyn Monroe like woman posing in a beach dress and nursing a bottle of cola.  What looked like a humidor dispensed cigars, the outside of the wood box showing rough looking Cuban men making the cigars at table, the label over the whole thing saying, "Cuba's Finest Stogies."

The room was active with so many machines,
Willy suffered a bout of sensory overload.  Willy landed on his hands and knees, panting out of breath.  He closed his eyes and purples and reds flashed as if someone had taken flash photography at point blank range.  The sounds of clicking, buzzing, and automated voices challenging customers for their patronage, it made his head whir with headache.  The sensation subsided the second his uncle's voice cut through the noise and said, "
Look right in front of you/I know you want to look/if I was you, I'd steal a gander myself
."

It was another box with telescope eyes for him to peer into.  He did so, curious as to what his uncle's voice was telling him to do. 

Willy caught moving pictures again.  They were of Jenna, his ex-girlfriend, as an adult.  She was dressed in a lace corset.  She was untying it knot by knot.  Her legs was perched on a bed rail, her face full of sex.  Her lips seemed to mouth his name as the photos kept moving faster and faster.  So fast, it turned into a moving, seemingly living, image.  She removed the corset, showing off her plump breasts.  She felt herself up, then squeezed the tips of her nipples until they were hard.  The squeeze caused her to throw her head back in a thrill of pleasure.  Her fingers went down to between her legs, and he could hear her moan.  The machine vibrated and caused his flesh to tingle and the hairs on his neck to rise. 

Something made him remember Jenna was dead. 

Jenna was in pieces. 

Jenna never posed for these pictures.  He shouted in protest, "Jenna is dead!" 

Willy cried in horror for a new reason.  Jenna's body erupted.  Blood doused the bed.  When her limbs sprang from their sockets, her peals of pain were jarring.  The telescope view shocked his eyes with a low voltage of electricity.  Willy was thrown back onto the floor and rendered unconscious.