The Impossible Coin (The Downwinders Book 2) (11 page)

Winn knocked lightly on Brent’s
window. After a few seconds, the glass louvers opened and he could see Brent’s
face.

“Can you come out?” Winn asked. He
could barely see Brent’s black eye.

“I better not,” Brent said. “My
dad is out drinking. He’s been really pissy and cranky all day today, so I better
be here when he gets home, or he’ll go into a rage.”

“Alright,” Winn said. “Marty said
he might call the cops on your dad.”

“No!” Brent said. “You told him?”

“I had to,” Winn said. “He wanted
to know where the nickel was.”

“Tell him not to!” Brent said, his
voice rising with panic. “It’ll just make things worse!”

“OK, OK! I’ll tell him!” Winn
said. “Calm down!”

“A teacher at school turned him in
last year, and I’m still paying for that!” Brent said.

“I’ll tell him not to call the
cops,” Winn said. “I promise. How’s your eye?”

“A little better,” Brent said,
calming. “It doesn’t look much better when I see it in the mirror, but it feels
a lot better thanks to the nickel.”

“You’re still using it?” Winn
asked.

“Yup,” Brent said. “Been using it
all day.”

“I thought it would have expired
by now.”

“Nope, it still works,” Brent
said, holding the nickel up so Winn could see it through the screen.

“Well, if you’re locked away for
the night, I guess I’ll see you at the bus stop in the morning,” Winn said.

“Yeah, OK!” Brent said. “See ya!”

The louvers began to fold closed,
and Winn turned to walk back to his trailer. Jeanette had come out, and was
pacing behind her chair. He could see from a distance that she’d bandaged up
Ears’ legs to resemble the bandages on her own. He felt sorry for the little
dog, lying under the chair. It raised its head from its wrapped paws to look up
at him as he approached.

“Jigga jagga ju!” Jeanette
mumbled. “Jigga jagga ju!” She turned and paced in a tight circle. “They’re
coming, through the desert! Over the sand! Who will save me?”

Most of the time Jeanette was
lucid, but he’d seen her once or twice like this, when she went off the deep
end, mumbling nonsense. Sometimes she would become so worked up she’d start
screaming, and someone in the trailer court would call authorities. More than
once she’d been hauled out on a stretcher; it was looking as though it might
happen again tonight. Winn hoped to pass her without gaining her attention, but
as he got closer, she turned to him.

“You think you’re so special,” she
said, looking at him, “with your tuned up nose and your coin and your black
rock. Jigga jagga ju! They’re coming for you, too! From the desert! Over the
sand!”

Winn froze. How did she know about
the nickel? And the rock Marty had given to him?

“That’s right,” Jeanette said, raising
a crooked finger to point at him. “Time is up! You think you’re so smart. Well,
jigga jagga ju! When they get here, we’ll see who’s smart! We’ll see who’s
special!” She dropped her finger and began pacing again. “Time is up, and when
they get here, then we’ll see who’s smart, then we will, for sure. And he’ll
pay, won’t he, Ears? He’ll pay! Jigga jagga ju! Jigga jagga ju! Oh, who will
save me?”

Winn turned to walk away from her,
and was met by Marty’s Cadillac coming down the driveway. He ran up to Marty’s
car and flagged him down.

“You haven’t called the cops on
Brent’s dad yet, have you?” Winn said, once Marty had rolled down his window.

“No,” Marty replied, “but I’m
thinking about it. How is he?”

“He’s better, but he got real
scared when I told him you might call them. He begged me to ask you not to do
it. He said it would just make it worse.”

“Hmm,” Marty said, thinking.

“Where are you going?” Winn asked.

“Into town for a bit,” Marty
replied, but his answer was interrupted by a sudden volume increase in
Jeanette’s ramblings.

“She on another tear?” Marty
asked.

“Yeah, she’s going on and on about
something coming,” Winn said. “I think she’s pissed at me. And she’s bandaged
up Ears’ legs again. The poor dog. If she keeps going on that loud, someone’s
gonna call the cops. That’s who’ll be coming.”

“Remember your promise,” Marty
said.

“What promise?” Winn asked.

Marty reached out the window and
grabbed Winn by the wrist. Winn, surprised, looked at Marty. He was deadly serious.
“You promised me you wouldn’t go back to that cave. Either in person or by the
River.”

“I won’t,” Winn said, wishing
Marty would release his arm.

Marty looked satisfied and let go
of Winn, turning to face the road. “Alright,” he said. “I guess I’ll see you
tomorrow, if you come around.”

“I will,” Winn said. “I’m gonna
get the nickel back from Brent tomorrow, and we can test it to see if it still
works or not.”

“OK,” Marty said, his window
rolling up. “Good night!”

Winn watched as Marty’s car slowly
rolled down the driveway and past a turn that put him out of sight. Jeanette
was still pacing and rambling, with an occasional word shouted too loudly that
made Winn jump. He expected to see a cop car pulling up the driveway soon.

It was beginning to get dark, so
he walked to his trailer. When he opened the door, the heat from inside blasted
out. His mother had turned off the A/C when she left for work in an attempt to
save money. It would take a half hour before the trailer was back down to a
reasonable temperature, and it irritated him. He walked inside, turned on the
air conditioner, grabbed his Walkman, and left the trailer while it cooled
down.

 Knowing the treehouse received an
occasional breeze that was never felt at ground level thanks to the proximity
of the trailers, Winn climbed up and onto the platform. He turned on his
Walkman and placed the headphones over his ears.

He felt a little amped up. Marty’s
concern about the cave and Jeanette’s rantings had set him on edge, and instead
of lying down to listen to the music, he sat cross legged, looking over the
platform and down into the trailer court. He could see Jeanette to his right,
still pacing. His headphones were masking her shouts.

He looked left, toward Marty’s
trailer, just as the lights that illuminated the trailer park’s driveway
switched on. The spot where his Cadillac was normally parked sat empty. He
wondered how long Marty would be gone. He felt bored, and wondered if he should
go over to Gale’s, see if he would let him play PS2. He looked at Gale’s
trailer and could see flashes of light coming from his bedroom window – the
result, no doubt, of intense zombie killing.

As dusk began to move into night,
Winn watched as bats darted over the trailers, sucking up bugs. There were six
or seven of them, moving erratically. Winn wondered how there could be enough
insects to interest the bats, but then he realized the bats were concentrating
on the streetlamps that had just come on.

The breeze he was hoping for
hadn’t materialized, and he felt sweat rolling down his skin inside his shirt.
I’ll
listen to a few more songs,
he thought,
and then I’ll go down to the
trailer. It’ll be nice and cool by then.

He reached down to adjust the
volume on his Walkman. When he looked back up, things seemed different. He
wasn’t sure how.

He saw movement to his right, and
he turned to look at Jeanette. Ears had pulled himself up from his spot under
her chair, and was standing in the driveway, barking. Jeanette was yelling at
the dog and waving her arms, attempting to get his attention. She went to her
trailer door, opened it and stepped inside, then turned and called for Ears to
come, but the little dog remained in the driveway, propped up by his ridiculous
bandaged legs. Ears was facing further down the driveway, toward Marty’s
trailer, and he was barking continuously, oblivious to Jeanette’s calls.

Winn looked up, and realized what
was different – the bats had gone. He could see insects swarming around the
driveway lights, but no bats. For some reason they’d left.

He looked left, back down toward
Marty’s trailer. Then he noticed the distant movement in the desert, beyond.
Faint, ghostly images, barely perceptible. They were walking slowly in his
direction. They were coming from the direction of the cave.

Winn sat up straight, strained his
eyes. It was almost completely dark now, and the driveway lights were a
distraction. He held his hand up to shield the glare of the lights from his
eyes, and looked into the desert again.

He hadn’t imagined it. There were
ghostly forms out there, slowly walking. He counted at least a dozen. In the
lead was a figure that wasn’t as faint as the others. They were still too far
away to make out any features.

Winn dropped into the River, and
the images in the desert intensified, sending a chill down his spine.
Ghosts,
he thought.
From the cave. Not just ghosts – zombighosts. If they see me in
the River, they’ll attack me!

He dropped out of the flow and was
immediately irritated at how much harder the figures were to see. He pulled the
headphones off his head, and the music reduced to a tinny echo, buzzing

I… want a god… who stays dead…
not plays dead…

and the rapid staccato barking of
Ears to his right. He turned, and saw Jeanette picking up the dog by its sides.
She pulled the dog to her chest, trying to quiet it, but Ears kept right on.
She shuffled him inside the house and shut the door with a slam. Winn could
still hear the muffled barks of the dog from inside the trailer.

 He turned back to the left, and
saw the figures had advanced. They were just on the other side of Marty’s
trailer.

Why are they here?
Winn
thought, scared, but thrilled at the same time.
Are they after Marty, for us
being out at the cave today? Maybe they’re after me, too?

He was glad Marty wasn’t home. As
he watched, the figures disappeared behind Marty’s trailer, and after a few
moments more they emerged from the side of the trailer facing him, having
marched through it.

Now Winn could see them a little
better. He wanted to drop into the River so he could see them with more
clarity, but he resisted the urge. In the front of the group was the leader,
and he could recognize him now – it was the Caller, the one he’d seen draining
blood from a mountain lion when he was inside the cave with Brent.

They
are
after me!
Winn
thought. He instinctively lowered himself so that only the top of his head
could be seen from the ground, and peeked over the edge of the platform.

Should I climb down to the
trailer to hide?
They just walked right through Marty’s trailer, so that
might not be a safe place to go…

As the group approached the first
driveway light, it flickered and went off, plunging that part of the trailer
court into darkness.

He watched as the figures
approached and then passed into Gale’s trailer. The flash of light against
Gale’s bedroom window stopped for a moment, as though he’d paused the game,
then it resumed. If Gale had detected the ghosts in his trailer, it hadn’t
unnerved him enough to stop playing for long. Winn watched as they emerged from
the trailer, continuing on, and extinguishing the next driveway light as they
went.

Now that they were much closer,
Winn could count them – there were sixteen in all. It bothered Winn that he
could see right through them. He couldn’t wrap his brain around the idea that
these figures could claw at anything; they looked too ethereal, too
insubstantial. Still, their presence in his trailer court spooked him, as
though a gang of thieves were prowling around his home. His heart was racing
and his mouth felt dry.

They were approaching his trailer
now, and the leader was close enough that Winn could make out his features.
Definitely
the same guy,
Winn thought.
What will they do when they find that I’m
not in the trailer? Will they start looking for me?

He held his breath as the first of
the ghostly figures passed into his trailer and out of sight. Slowly the others
joined it, until there were no more apparitions in his view, and things started
to look normal again.

Then the driveway light
immediately across from where he was perched blacked out, and he saw the face
of one of the figures emerge from his trailer. He slunk down as far as he could
go and still see the ghosts. One by one the others emerged, until the entire
group had reappeared, and they continued to march. He waited for one of them to
turn and notice him, up in the trees, spying down at them, but they didn’t turn
– they kept facing forward just as they had from the first moment he’d spotted
them out in the desert. They continued further into the trailer court.

Maybe they’re after Jeanette?
Winn wondered.
She said something about them coming. Maybe they’re here for
her.

He watched as the group of ghosts
marched past Jeanette’s without slowing. The leader of the group was steering
them to a trailer a little further down and across from Jeanette’s. They
marched relentlessly, with an even pace. Winn wondered if maybe they’d march
right through the trailer court and continue on down the road. He let out a
little air, relaxing as he realized that if they were after him, they seemed to
have missed him. He saw them pass into Brent’s trailer and he waited for them
to emerge from the other side.

After a moment, he was horrified
to see them returning, coming back out of Brent’s trailer. One of them was holding
Brent, a hand over his mouth. Winn imagined that, had he not been able to see
the ghosts, Brent would appear to be floating.

Winn sat up, suddenly unconcerned
about the ghosts seeing him. They were taking Brent, moving back through the
trailer court. Brent seemed to be asleep; his eyes were closed and he wasn’t
struggling. They carried him past Winn’s trailer, then past Gale’s, and were
soon passing through Marty’s trailer on their way back to the desert.