Part 16 (1/2)

A coin shot up from the pile and fired into the steel slot below the door k.n.o.b. 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 bas.e.m.e.nt onto the concrete floor, as if sucked in. What noises w.i.l.l.y heard filter up from the bas.e.m.e.nt had him taking careful and deliberate steps down each stair. w.i.l.l.y 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 bas.e.m.e.nt, the s.p.a.ce 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. w.i.l.l.y 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, w.i.l.l.y.”

Within another wooden box that was chest high, a gla.s.s 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 l.u.s.ter over time, though, giving it a vintage look. Sounds of music and laughter were on a looping soundtrack.

w.i.l.l.y 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, flas.h.i.+ng 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 bra.s.s k.n.o.bs 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 flas.h.i.+ng 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. w.i.l.l.y 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 were 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s and steel, looking like it came from a rich garish man's parlor. w.i.l.l.y had counted ten old fas.h.i.+oned cigarette machines. w.i.l.l.y 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, w.i.l.l.y 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, w.i.l.l.y suffered a bout of sensory overload. w.i.l.l.y 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.

w.i.l.l.y 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 s.e.x. 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s. 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!”

w.i.l.l.y 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. w.i.l.l.y was thrown back onto the floor and rendered unconscious.

THE BAs.e.m.e.nT.

He didn't heed the warning. Brock bypa.s.sed James who was leaning against the wall to collect himself. The bas.e.m.e.nt door had already been opened. Inside was what looked to be a workshop with power tools and basic tools hanging from nails on cardstock walls. The most troubling scene was the piece of board propped on four saw horses. The top was covered in the remains of a human torso. Nine hooks dangled from overhead. Meat hooks. Chains propelled them somehow, the chains suspended by pulleys and metal rings. The tips of the hooks bore chunks of wilted meat. Flesh and fat. A single light bulb was left on in the room, though its beam was weak. The room was a faded beer bottle amber hue. The obscuring light was generous in the way it hid the random arms and legs strewn about the floor. The room was a greasy chopping block.

Losing his equilibrium and balance at such gruesome sights, Brock teetered back and forth, swimming in nonexistent waters and unable to find his way back up top to fresh air. He tried to convince himself this wasn't really happening. The murder scene was his imagination. A bad dream. It was too easy to accept what was in front of his eyes because he'd seen it in the streets already.

”This place is a slaughterhouse.” James closed his eyes, turning his head up the stairs. ”We should leave. I don't want to be here another second.”

Brock agreed, though the disappointment of finding nothing but more death kept settling in deeper. ”This was all for nothing. I'm never going to find Hannah.”

It was that moment there was a harsh shriek. After repeated shrieks, he realized it wasn't a pained shout, but a word. One word. ”Brock! Braaaaaaaawck! Braaaaaaaaaaaawck!”

Brock's eyes penetrated the door opposite them as if the door itself was Hannah. He barreled forward, absent-mindedly kicking aside random limbs and human organs against the walls on the way. Brock was running in a straight line to the other side of the room.

”Hannah, it's me! It's me, honey! It's Brock!”

Brock was choking back celebratory tears and stopped when he turned the door k.n.o.b, and it wouldn't come open. ”s.h.i.+t!”

The steel square glued the door in place.

All he needed was a coin.

Pounding from the other side, she cried out for him, ”Brock, get me out of here. It's horrible. That man did something to me. I need you to see what he did to me. I thought you were dead. I thought you drowned. Thank G.o.d you're not dead.”

Staring at the door, Brock prioritized his thoughts, knowing if he said the wrong thing, he could panic here even more. ”Are you hurt?”

”I can't say. I'm not sure.”

Brock thought again on how to save her when he remembered he had loose change in his pocket from the truck where he'd found Angel's body. He shoved a quarter through the door, and it came open with a double click.

Hannah immediately fell into his arms.

She was covered in the blood of many in finger paint consistencies. He held her anyway, relieved she was alive. James stayed back, checking the stairway, keeping an ear out to anybody coming.

Hannah whispered to him, ”I thought you were dead. That man came out of nowhere. He killed those four people, and he knocked me out. Did something...something to me...I-I don't know what, but I don't feel right.”

James heard the last tidbit with a dreadful sigh. ”She's been altered like the rest of us.”

Brock had an idea to prove the theory. He placed his last coin into Hannah's hand. She was confused, ruffling her forehead and eyebrows.

”Give it a moment, honey. You'll see.”

Hannah kept her hand open, her eyes bright white surrounded by dark crimson. The coin sank into her palm, the skin parting like putty, and then reforming after sucking down the coin.

She closed her hand. Tearing up, she fell into Brock's arms shocked and sobbing. ”W-what did that man do to me?”

James stepped up to her and explained. ”That man did the same to me. He did the same to Brock's sister. We can only live if we have money. We're like machines running on coins, dollars bills, valuables, rings, jewelry. You understand?”

Brock antic.i.p.ated her next questions by how her body tensed up, preparing to reject such a ludicrous explanation. ”Don't expect it to make sense. We do know the axe man is responsible.”

Hannah was panicked now, thinking about the man with the golden axe again. ”He'll be back. He's been gone for a few hours. He brings new bodies back, and he changes them. I watched. He cuts them apart. Opens them up. Puts something in them. But sometimes, whatever he's doing, it doesn't work. The body just comes apart into pieces.” Hannah pointed at the stray limbs, abhorring them.

”We should get out of here,” James insisted. ”Get your sister, and get the f.u.c.k out of here.”

”That man has the answers we need,” Brock said. ”We're not getting far without an explanation. Didn't you say n.o.body can just walk out of here? The ground sucks you down, and you melt, or something? Isn't that what you said?”

Awestruck confusion covered Hannah's face. ”Can you hear yourself? You're babbling a bunch of bulls.h.i.+t.”

”This bloodbath proves I'm right. Wake up, Hannah!” James snapped. ”I've got nothing here except for a bunch of strange s.h.i.+t. I'm not the one who's doing this. It's just happening.”

”That's why we have to sabotage that maniac. Make him tell us why he's doing this. Then maybe we can escape. If you haven't noticed, n.o.body's coming to help us.” Brock pointed at the nail gun in the corner. He walked to it, then handed it to James. ”You take it.”

James's face lost its edge. ”You want me to shoot a nail at him? It's got a steel lock over the trigger.”

”If he doesn't tell us what we want to hear, well, yeah. Here, I've got a dime.”

Brock put it in for him so the coin wouldn't sink into James's flesh. ”There, it's unlocked.”

”Then what are you going to do, Brock? I need back-up. What if I miss?”

”Yes, yes.” Brock chose a sledgehammer propped against the wail next to a box filled with mason jars. He clutched it in his hands, and before he could instruct Hannah on what to do, she'd already taken a hammer and practiced several swings. ”Good girl.”

They were huddled close together, each clutching a weapon that was as comfortable as using a baseball bat to carve a statue.