The Impossible Coin (The Downwinders Book 2) (13 page)

Brent let out a high-pitched
scream at the top of his lungs, and Winn felt every hair stand up on the back
of his neck. Something horrible was happening to his friend, something he
couldn’t see inside the tunnel.

He pulled Brent’s arms, struggling
to not fall into the hole himself. His back began to ache, but he kept pulling.
Brent’s screams intensified. Winn felt a surge of adrenaline, and he tugged.
This time Brent lurched forward a few inches. Now Winn could see Brent’s knees.
They didn’t look good.

He tugged again, gaining another
two inches. As Brent’s calves came into view, he knew they were in serious
trouble. Brent’s pants were shredded, and he could see long strips of flesh had
been removed. Fresh blood was flowing, dripping onto the ground. Seeing the
blood caused Winn to pull again, desperate to extricate his friend. Brent
screamed as he pulled, and the rest of Brent’s body emerged into the hole. Brent’s
feet looked red and white; Winn realized they were just blood and bone. The
flesh had been stripped away.

He pulled Brent from the hole,
afraid the zombighosts of the cave would follow them, but they didn’t emerge.
He dropped into the River for a moment and heard them screeching just beyond
the depression of the rock – unwilling to come out into the light. He dropped
out of the flow and looked at Brent’s legs. He was stunned – he’d never seen
such gore. He felt like vomiting.

Instead, his body was pumping
adrenaline, and he wondered how to get Brent out of the canyon. He tried
lifting Brent and carrying him. Brent was sobbing in his arms, and his eyes
looked as if his mind was far away. He ran as fast as he could, trying to keep
steady and not drop Brent as he maneuvered through the rocks. He was able to
make it about a hundred yards before his arms gave out. When he stopped and
laid Brent down on the ground, he looked back, and saw the trail of blood they
were leaving.

He bent down to examine Brent’s
wounds again, and saw more fresh blood oozing out of his calves below the knee,
where the majority of the damage had occurred.
I’ve got to get him help
quickly, or he’s going to lose too much blood,
Winn thought.

He pulled his friend’s arms up and
over his back, and once he had Brent raised off the ground, he began running
again. Occasionally Brent would slide down his back a little, and Winn would
stop and pull him back up, and then continue racing out of the canyon. He was
able to keep this going for longer than he’d been able to carry Brent in his
arms, and soon he was at the mouth of the canyon, at the tree where he’d parked
his bike.

He sat Brent down next to the tree
and propped him up against its trunk.

“I’m going to ride my bike back to
the trailer court and get some help,” Winn said.

“Wait!” Brent said. Winn paused. Brent
was getting his first look at the condition of his legs. “Don’t leave me here.
Please don’t leave me here like this!”

“I can’t take you on my bike!”
Winn said. “It’ll be a lot faster if I race back and get help! If I carry you,
you’re going to lose too much blood!”

Brent began to cry, looking at his
legs. “Don’t ditch me!” he said, pleading. “Don’t leave me here!”

“Here, take this,” Winn said,
pressing the nickel back into Brent’s palm. “Keep the pain down. I’ll be right
back!” Winn mounted his bike. He pressed down on the pedal, and felt the dirt
kick up behind him as his tires gained traction on the desert floor.

“Please don’t go!” he heard Brent
call, but he knew he had to get help. Brent was in shock, and didn’t understand
how important it was that they get people who could help on their way. Brent’s
cries for him to return began to fade as he made his way through the desert,
swerving around the dry stream beds and cacti.

It was a good fifteen minute bike
ride under normal conditions. Winn raced as fast as his bike and his legs would
allow, knowing that every minute mattered.

He saw Marty’s trailer in the
distance, the edge of the trailer park. He doubled his efforts. His legs felt
like they were on fire, but he kept pumping, determined to go faster.

The sun was already beating down,
well above the horizon.
We must have been asleep in that cave for hours,
Winn
thought.
Marty’s stone was more powerful than he realized.

Once he swerved into the trailer
park, he let his bike hit the ground and he leapt off it, running to Marty’s
trailer door. He pounded on it, not waiting for Marty to answer. “Marty!” he
yelled. “Marty! Open up! It’s an emergency!” He kept pounding on the door until
it opened, and he fell inside.

“What’s going on?” Marty asked,
standing at the door in his bathrobe.

Winn pulled himself up and stood
next to Marty. “Brent’s been hurt. He’s bleeding real bad. We gotta get help.”

“That son of a bitch,” Marty said,
walking to his phone. He lifted the receiver from the wall and dialed 911.

“No, not his dad,” Winn said. “Out
in the cave. They took him. They ripped up his legs. I had to leave him at the
mouth of the canyon so I could ride back here and get help.”

When an operator came on the line
to take Marty’s 911 call, he explained they needed emergency services at a spot
in the desert. Marty seemed to know the name of the canyon, and he gave the
operator more precise directions than Winn knew to relay. He told them to bring
vehicles rugged enough to maneuver over desert terrain.

“What happened to him?” Marty
asked Winn, placing his hand over the phone.

“Zombighosts tore at him as we
were leaving the cave,” Winn said. “They ripped up his legs below the knee. His
feet are stripped bare, and he’s bleeding. I gotta go back out there to him.”

“Wait, we’ll go together,” Marty
said, and turned back to the phone, explaining the injuries to the operator,
and suggesting they might have been caused by a coyote or a mountain lion. He
told the operator they were going back out to try and find the boy, and hung
up.

“If we run it, it’ll take too
long,” Winn said. “He’s bleeding really bad.”

“We’ll take my Caddy,” Marty said.
He disappeared into the back of the trailer, and emerged with two towels and
some rope. “Take these,” he said, handing them to Winn. He grabbed his car
keys, and they left the trailer.

Marty drove them out of the
trailer park and turned north, going down the road until the fencing stopped
and he could pull off without bottoming out. Then he began trying to drive the
car over the rough desert terrain, avoiding boulders and going gently when it
looked as though sharp rocks might take out his tires.

“I should have rode my bike back
out to him,” Winn said. “This is taking too long.”

“We need a way to haul him out, if
we can,” Marty said. “Hopefully the authorities will get there and bring better
vehicles, like a jeep.”

“A jeep could get him out of
there?” Winn asked.

“Oh yeah,” Marty said. “It would
make it past these boulders no problem, much faster than we’re going.”

“I wish we had a jeep.”

“But if they’re slow to come,
we’ll take him in my car.”

“What’s the rope for?” Winn asked.
“And the towels?”

“We’ll use the rope to tie up his
leg above the wound and try to stop the bleeding.”

“Oh,” Winn said.

“It’s called a tourniquet,” Marty
added. “And we’ll use the towels to put pressure on the wounds.”

Winn suddenly felt sick. With all
of Marty’s talk about bleeding, it suddenly dawned on him that Brent might not
be alive when they reached him.

Marty brought the car to a stop.
“It’s that tree, over there, right?” he asked Winn, pointing.

“Yes,” Winn said. “That’s it.”
There were birds circling over the tree.

“I can’t take the car any further
without blowing a tire,” Marty said, opening his door. “Grab those things and
let’s hoof it!”

They left the car and ran across
the desert floor. Winn was faster than Marty, who began to slow after a hundred
yards. When Winn got within shouting distance of the tree, he began to yell.

“We’re coming, Brent! We’re
coming!”

Winn arrived a moment later,
skidding to a stop. He felt his stomach drop the moment he saw Brent. There was
a lot of blood soaked into the sand around his legs. Brent’s head had fallen to
one side.

Winn knelt down by his friend and
looked at him. He felt tears beginning to form, sensing that things were too
far gone. Marty arrived a few seconds later.

“Sweet Jesus,” he said, kneeling
on the other side of Brent. He reached out to feel for a pulse, then he lifted
Brent’s head.

“Is he alive?” Winn asked.

“I’m sorry son, I don’t think so,”
Marty said. He looked down at Brent’s legs. “I think we’re too late for the
tourniquet, too. My god, what happened to him?”

“They came through the trailer
court, looking for him,” Winn replied, wiping tears from his face. “They took
him to the cave. It’s because I gave him the coin. They wanted to be repaid.
This is my fault. I killed him.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Marty said.
“You didn’t kill him. You gave him that nickel out of kindness.”

“They took him back to the cave,”
Winn said. “I know I promised you I wouldn’t go in there, but I had to do
something. They were going to drain him, like the mountain lion. When I got
there, he was already strung up. I used your flash bomb to distract them, but
it knocked everyone out. It was way more powerful than you said it would be. We
had to be asleep for hours, because when I woke up it was daylight outside the
cave. We tried to escape, but Brent got caught at the entrance. They tore at
his legs while I tried to pull him out.” Winn broke down and began to cry.

Marty walked around Brent and
pulled Winn to him, trying to console the child. “You did nothing wrong. You
tried to save your friend.”

“He begged me not to leave him
here,” Winn said as he sobbed. “I told him I had to go for help, so I took my
bike and went to your place. He said I was ditching him. He died by himself.
And now they’ll come after me.”

“I don’t think so,” Marty said.
“If Brent bled in that cave, son, they got their payment.”

Marty turned as he heard the sound
of a vehicle approaching.

“Winn, listen to me,” Marty said.
“They’re going to ask you what happened. You tell them everything except about
the coin and the ghosts, alright? Don’t bring up that stuff. You two fell
asleep in that cave, and Brent was attacked by a mountain lion. They won’t
believe you if you tell them anything else. Can you do that?”

“Yeah,” Winn said, still sobbing.

Two EMTs arrived with chests, and
began working on Brent. They appeared horrified at the sight of Brent’s legs.
They stopped after a few minutes. One of them turned to Marty. “He’s dead. We
can’t move him until the sheriff’s office clears it.”

Winn burst into a fresh round of
tears and Marty hugged him tightly. They waited next to Brent until a deputy
arrived and the questions began.

Winn fell back into the sofa,
exhausted. He leaned back and closed his eyes, wanting to sleep. School had
started early that morning, with an extra football practice before first hour.
After school had been another practice which had wiped him out physically. They
were playing longtime rivals this Friday, and the coach was working them hard
in preparation.

After practice came work, his
shift at Fred Meyer, where he stocked shelves for four hours. The only relief
he’d had all day had been during his break at work, when he and Jim shared a
joint behind the store dumpster in the back parking lot.

His mother’s car wasn’t in the
driveway, so he assumed she was working. He turned on the TV, and local news
was on every channel. Still no cable.
She’ll never get cable,
he thought
as he clicked the channels and left it on the one with the handsomest
newscaster.

He wasn’t hungry, but he found
himself getting up and searching the refrigerator. Nothing appealed to him. He
enjoyed the feeling of the cool air, and considered pulling up a chair to sit
in front of the open fridge until the rest of the trailer cooled down.

Instead, he closed the door and
walked back to the couch, falling into it. He kicked off a shoe and it flew a
couple of feet into the air before landing on the other side of the room. Then
he kicked off the other shoe, and felt the squishiness of his sock. He wondered
if he’d sweat so much it was soaked all the way though. He reached down to look
at it, and saw the blood.

Fuck!
he thought, leaning
back on the couch.
Not again!

He slipped his shoes back onto his
feet and walked to the bathroom, not wanting to leave a trail of bloody
footprints. Once there, he sat on the closed toilet and removed his shoes once
again, the fluorescent light of the bathroom brightly illuminating the dark
crimson liquid that had soaked his socks.

This had happened twice before.
The last time, he was changing in the locker room when he noticed the blood.
He’d been able to make it to the shower in privacy that time, washing it away
and wearing gym socks for the rest of the day. The first time it happened was
about a month ago, here at home, at the end of a day, like today. He had
freaked out when he first saw the blood, and spent almost an hour examining the
skin of his feet and ankles, looking for something that could account for the
bleeding. He hadn’t found anything then, and he was sure he wasn’t going to
find anything this time, either. He peeled the wet socks from his feet and
placed them into the sink, trying to avoid any drops hitting the floor. He
stepped into the tub and used the shower to rinse off, watching as the red
washed off his skin and down the drain. He took the opportunity to take an
entire shower, enjoying feeling clean after a long, sweaty day. As he stepped
out of the shower, he saw the blood soaked socks in the sink, knowing he’d have
to rinse them out before his mother got home. He wrapped a towel around himself
and walked back into the trailer. It was almost ten forty-five, and he knew
tomorrow morning was going to come early. He turned off the TV and walked back
to the bathroom. He leaned over the sink and turned on the water, twisting the
socks and trying to get as much of the blood out of them as possible.

This has got to stop,
he
thought.
The nightmares, the visions, and this…it’s too much.

He knew the difference between
guilt and phenomenon. He’d spent almost a year with a counselor after Brent’s death
nearly six years ago, meeting once a week and going over how he felt. Marty was
a big help in the first few weeks after it happened, reminding him again and
again that Brent’s death was not his fault. But he lost touch with Marty almost
immediately when his mother moved their trailer to a different park, wanting to
get away from the tragedy and the neighbors. It was ten miles away, and too far
for a bike ride. Marty had tried to stay in contact, dropping by on his own,
but his mother’s dislike of Marty had grown, and she forbade him to contact him
or do anything with him. As a result, over time they’d fallen out of touch, and
he felt bad about it. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen Marty, and
he knew it was well over a year. He felt he could really use Marty’s advice
right about now.

He wandered into his bedroom,
bringing the socks with him. He closed the door and hung the socks over the
back of his desk chair to dry, then tossed the towel on the floor and pulled on
a pair of briefs. He dropped into his bed and stared up at the ceiling.

He felt incredibly lonely. He was
used to his mother not being around. Even when she was, she was distant. He had
few people he could turn to, who understood his situation and gave a rat’s ass.
With his estrangement from Marty, there was no one he could talk to about the
River. And he had few friends. Brent had seen to it.

His mother had been on his case
for years about his lack of friends since Brent’s death. He knew she saw him as
an anti-social loner, unable or unwilling to interact with other kids his age.
She pushed him to get out and meet people, but he pushed right back. He saw
what happened to people when he got friendly with them, and he was done with
that.

Maybe I should go see Marty,
he thought.
I’ve got a car now, it’s not like I’d have to pedal my bike for
miles in the hot sun. I don’t have a shift tomorrow, I could stop and see him
after school, see how he’s doing. Ask him about the blood, and the visions.
Tell him about my friends, what’s happened to them. Maybe he’ll have some idea
of what to do.

Then again, maybe not. I’m
sixteen now, and I’ve got to learn to deal with all this shit on my own. Be an
adult. Can’t run crying to Marty over every little thing.

He closed his eyes and found
himself rapidly drifting off to sleep.

▪
▪
▪

 Winn awoke in excruciating pain.
His legs ached, and he felt sharp stabs in his flesh as though someone was
attacking him with a knife. He sat up and pulled the covers from his feet.

There were a half dozen Z-flies latched
onto his legs below the knee, slicing at his skin and ripping it from his body,
using their centipede arms to move the strips of removed flesh to their mouths.
In horror he saw that they’d already stripped his feet bare, and were working
their way up his legs. He moved his feet, and his saw the bloody bones of his
feet wiggle in response. He screamed.

The Z-flies turned to look at him.
He saw them detach from his legs and fly toward his face. He swatted at them,
feeling nothing in the air. Was he in or out of the River?

Am I dreaming?
he wondered.

He stopped screaming and lowered
his arms. Looking down again, his legs were whole.

He felt his forehead – there were
copious amounts of sweat. He took big breaths, trying to compose himself. The
clock on his desk read three-thirty.

Something was different, out of
place. He looked at the desk again – the socks he’d placed over the chair were
gone.

My mother,
he thought.
I
wish she’d stay out of my room.

He turned on the light by his bed
and winced as his eyes adjusted. He saw the socks on the floor, near a chair at
the base of his bed. They were not lying on the floor, but upright – as though
something he couldn’t see was filling them.

He dropped into the River and saw
Brent, sitting in the chair, staring at him, the socks pulled over the bones of
his feet. Winn felt scared and sick at the same time.

Brent!
Winn thought.
Stop!
Please stop torturing me!

Brent’s features had changed. They
weren’t just the simple features of a ten-year-old boy. They’d become something
caricatured by whatever force was keeping Brent going. His lips curled a little,
his cheeks were hollow, and there was a power in his eyes, something driving
him. He looked consumed by anger.

You ditched me,
Brent said,
looking at Winn.
But I’ll show you how it’s done. I’ll never ditch you.
Never.

A chill went down Winn’s spine as
he saw Brent fade from view. The socks collapsed on the floor.

Fuck!
Winn thought, falling
back into bed, his head hitting the pillow. He could hear his heartbeat in his
ears, pounding fast.
He means it. He really means it. He’s going to haunt me
for the rest of my life.

Winn tried to close his eyes and
go back to sleep, but he was too wired. He kept feeling things crawling on his
legs, and he responded by kicking them, which kept him awake. He knew nothing
was there, but the sensation felt so real he couldn’t resist reacting. It felt
to him as if this went on for hours; on the verge of sleep, something on his
legs, kicking them away, trying to sleep again. Over and over.

When he finally awoke the next
morning, he felt like shit. He knew he’d be a basket case at school and
practice.

I’ve got to get a handle on
this,
he thought.
I’ve got to do something. I can’t keep ignoring it.
It’s getting worse and it’ll take me over soon.

He resolved to stop at Marty’s
after school. He didn’t care if his mother found out – this was something he
needed to do, or he’d go insane.

▪
▪
▪

His stereo was blaring
Odditorium
,
and The Dandy Warhols were singing about how everyone was totally insane when
he pulled the dumpy Corolla his mother let him drive into the parking stall by
Marty’s trailer. There was a new Caddy parked in the other stall –
Marty
must have upgraded since the last time I saw him,
he thought.
At least
he’s home.

Winn walked up to the gate
surrounding Marty’s lawn and before he could open it, Marty appeared at the
door.

“Want some lemonade, stranger?” he
asked, smiling.

“Sure,” Winn said, walking into
the gate. “You must have heard me pull up.”

“How could I not with all that
noise you were blaring?” Marty said. “That’s a nice ride you got there.”

“It’s a piece of shit, Marty,”
Winn said. “I’m always afraid it’s going to conk out on me. I’m not sure why it
keeps running.”

“When did you get your license?”
Marty asked, letting Winn inside and closing the door.

“Nine months ago,” Winn said. “Got
a job at Fred Meyer, and my mom broke down and bought it for me so I could make
it back and forth to work.”

“God, look at you, all grown up,
working and driving,” Marty said, handing him a chilled can of lemonade from
his fridge.

“I drink beer, Marty,” Winn said.
“You don’t have to feed me lemonade anymore.”

“It’s called contributing to the
delinquency of a minor,” Marty said. “You gotta be twenty-one.” Marty sat with
his beer and popped the can. “Howya been, kiddo? You look like crap.”

“It’s been OK, but things have
gotten worse lately,” Winn said, opening the lemonade and taking a sip.

“From how tired you look, I’m
guessing nightmares,” Marty said.

“Bad ones. Last night I dreamt my
legs were being eaten by Z-flies.”

“I should never have told you
about those.”

“It’s not just that,” Winn said.
“I see him. He appears to me. Last night he said he was never going to leave me.
He said I ditched him, but he’s never going to ditch me.”

“Maybe that was a dream, too?”
Marty asked hopefully.

“No, I was in the River,” Winn
answered. “He was in my room, sitting on a chair at the foot of my bed. He’s
pissed. He’s never going to stop.”

“I admit that dreams can be
frightening, but in reality they’re just a nuisance,” Marty said. “You can
learn to ignore them, understand them for what they are.”

“It’s not just dreams, Marty. Last
night when I got home from work, my socks were soaked with blood. I didn’t have
any cuts, the blood wasn’t from me. It’s the third time it’s happened. I can’t
tell you how many times I’ve slipped my foot into my shoes and found spiders
inside, even if I dump them out before I put them on. When I was swimming at
school last week, my legs seized up. I couldn’t move them, kick with them. When
I got out of the water I was fine.”

“It could have been just a
seizure,” Marty said.

“It wasn’t,” Winn said. “The worst
of it is that I can’t have any friends.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t have any friends, because
Brent does evil things to them. If I get close to someone, he wrecks it.”

Marty scoffed.

“It’s true!” Winn said. “Just
after we moved to the new trailer court, I met Scott. He was my age, and we
became friends and hung out all the time. He got a cut on his leg, and they had
to amputate it. Said it was flesh-eating bacteria.”

“Well…” Marty said, unconvinced.
“That could be a coincidence.”

“Taylor, at school. Excellent
track runner, was headed to state. We became friends, and within two weeks he
broke both his ankles while practicing a hundred-meter dash. How do you break
both
your ankles? If he can run again, he’ll never do it well enough to race. He’s
fucked.”

“That wasn’t necessarily because
of you,” Marty said.

“Evan and I became friends in
vocational ed,” Winn continued. “We were supposed to hang out one night, but he
crushed his leg under a car he was working on. Now he walks with a limp.”

Marty stopped with the comments
and sat silently.

“Don’t you see? It’s Brent. He’s
determined to ruin any friendship I ever have. I stopped trying to be friendly
with people, and then he started up with the nightmares and the hallucinations
and the blood.”

“You think he’s still mad at you?”

“I know he is,” Winn said. “His
words to me last night were, ‘You ditched me, but I’ll never ditch you. Never.’
He’s going to torture me for the rest of my life. I’ll never be able to sleep.
I’ll never have any friends.”