COIN-OPERATED MACHINES

by

Alan Spencer

CEMETERY MELTDOWN

Piedmont Cemetery was located on the outskirts of Blue Hills, Virginia.  The area was picturesque, though sadly the calming backdrop view of the Appalachian Valley did nothing for Andrea Stone's current mental state.  What could distract her from the reality of her husband being two months dead? Visiting Mickey's grave had been a weekly tradition since his burial.  The visits gave Andrea enough solace and stability to keep on working as a dental assistant and raising their eight year old daughter alone.  The single mother somehow remained strong.  Despite her wherewithal, Andrea wasn't prepared to hear Mickey's voice again.

"Leave the cemetery/leave before it happens/run for your life/it isn't too late/you won't survive if you don't escape/Andrea, you must run!"

Andrea couldn't dismiss the words, nor could she react to them.  The warnings made no sense.  She was alone in a cemetery.  What did she have to run from?  Who was here that could possibly harm her?

The wind carried nothing for a short period of time, as if the words didn't happen at all.  The occurrence was so random and unexplainable.  What was Mickey really trying to tell her, or was she hearing things?  Was independent, strong-willed Andrea finally losing herself to her grief?

The feeling of unease didn't leave her body.  Her deep down instincts told her to be afraid and for good reason.  Seconds later, the ground rumbled.  The turf over the graves, including Mickey's, detonated.  Grass clods and dirt sprayed the air. Pockets of gas erupted from the holes, hundreds of high-pressure poots of air shredding the earth.  So powerful the plumes of air, headstones shattered.  Slab shrapnel rained down.  Andrea had to duck and cover after taking a small sliver of marble to the head.  Blood oozed down her scalp.  The pain forced her into survival mode.  The broken up ground revealed dozens of exposed caskets six feet down.

Mickey was speaking on the air again.  "It's too late/it's much too late, my love/you should've ran away when you had the chance."

She was dizzy from the blow to the head.  Andrea couldn't trust what she was hearing anymore.  No time to react, a whoosh of air beneath her feet knocked her helplessly onto the ground.  The rocking earth threatened to tip her over into one of the exposed coffins.

The dirt explosions doubled.  Every grave was under attack.  Andrea couldn't see through the veil of exploding dirt and raining headstone chunks.  Then the deathly smell arrived in force.  The thick yellowish fog enshrouding the cemetery contained hints of rotting flesh, wafts of infection, and pungent gangrene tangs. She choked on the offal odors.  All around her the yellow air grew hotter.

Voices not her husband's beckoned from everywhere: "The dead are back/the dead are here/the dead have returned/the dead are alive/celebrate their resurrection/you die we live/you die we live/you die we live/the fun is only beginning/play our games, won't you?"

Hundreds of thousands of haunting voices boomed loud enough to rip the limbs off of trees and break both of her ear drums.  Deafened, she lost her equilibrium, and subsequently, her footing.  Stepping wrong and twisting her ankle, Andrea tipped over and tumbled headfirst into her husband's open grave.  The casket, nor his corpse, would break her fall.  Boiling black oil burbled up from the grave's hole.  The boiling black oil was thicker than tar.  Andrea dissolved the instant she touched the wicked brew.

Andrea's deranged voice soon joined the throngs of the dead.

The oils spitting up from the casket holes spilled all across the cemetery acres.  The molten tide burned up the grass and caught fire to the trees.  Moving forward, it filled up the cemetery house.  So hot the flow, the glass in the windows melted.  The very foundation crumbled upon itself until the entire structure vanished.  With nothing left to burn, the black oil seeped back into the earth.  It moved underground in a forward direction, slowly working its way deeper into the town of Blue Hills.

AMERICA'S GOT FLAIR

Nine Days after Piedmont Cemetery Melted

Brock Richards, the seasoned talent scout, asked his next tryout to begin their act. After Mr. Stewart lit the torch in his hand, the flaming ball produced a reek of gasoline.  He raised the torch, posing to dip it into his mouth.  Before he did, the hick finally explained his talent.

“I’m a fire eater, you see."

Before the flame enters his mouth, a leak out of the metal head starts a liquid-fire spill.  Before Mr. Stewart’s rented tux is set aflame, Brock raced over to the wall, ripped the fire extinguisher from its post, and doused the tryout in foam.  After the commotion subsides, and everybody's deemed unharmed, Mr. Stewart leaves the room in shame.

Brock writes on his Steno notebook as the man's leaving: Never leave home—or host an open try-out—without a fire extinguisher handy.

Next, Anna Belle Young stands before Brock and his co-judge sheepishly, her arms tucked behind her back.  She’s twelve years old, and her mother has dressed her in a pink dress and pig tails, though the pigtails are crooked, and it looks as if she’d just taken a shower, her hair damp.  Brock looks on at the child with sympathy—and sympathy gains a ticket to the finals if the contestant can pull off something half-interesting and competent—and waits for her to showcase her talent.

“Ms. Young, what do you have for us today, sweetie?”  Brock’s question elicits a knowing smile from the girl's lips.  She replies in a sing-song voice, “My name is Anna Belle Young, and I’m nine years old.  I go to school at Mill Creek Elementary.  My talent, you can hear it, and you sure can smell it.  Here goes!"

Moments pass, and Brock catches a whiff.  "Whoa, okay now! That's all we need.  Thank you very much for coming in, Ms. Young.  The door is right behind you."

The hasty chicken scratch on Brock's notebook reads: I never believed farting between every word when you talk was a talent.  What on Earth does that mother feed her child?

Mr. Roy Hanover is up next.  Brock watches him strut into Ralston, Kansas’s, Community Center Banquet Hall Conference Room with hair shining of fresh pomade and adorned in his best suit with an oversized red bow tie.  The man opens his black carry case to introduce Reggie, the jive-talking short order cook.

Brock writes in resignation: Didn’t Mr. Hanover read the sign?  No ventriloquist acts.

The next act came and went in under thirty seconds.  Brock raises and lowers his jaw to check if his hearing has been damaged.  His hand aches, but he keeps writing in his trusty notebook anyway. No, Debra Franklin, you don’t sound like the love child of Cindy Lauper.

After the next act, Tommy Wiseman, the unit producer, is on his hands and knees wiping up spots of blood from the tiles.  He scowls at Brock, then bursts out laughing, “'Damn yokels'—that’s what our show should be called from now on."

Brock's final verdict on the Damn Yokels act: As fun as it is watching you punch your friend in the mouth, and as hilarious and amusing it is to watch you bust out his false teeth tooth-by-tooth, I’m afraid it’s not suitable for a show designed for family viewing.

Another contestant later, Brock wets his tongue with the tip of his pen before writing: No, Mr. Brundage, peeing for two minutes straight into a Gatorade cooler isn’t a talent, it's called having an infection.

Brock completed writing his notes, cringing on the inside after enduring the six hours of open tryouts for the nationally televised show called “America’s Got Flair."

His fellow judge, Ryan Wilson, patted Brock's back in consolation.  “Well, America Sucks Balls, and the biggest cock sucker is...?”

“The guy who could pee like a champion.  And did you see him carry that cooler out with him?  What the hell does he do with the piss?  Does he save it for later?"

“Start a lemonade stand.  Freshly squeezed.”

“I bet the sign would be spelled with a backwards 'L'.  Man, we get some serious weirdoes when we visit the fucking Midwest."

Brock gathered up his notes and shoved them into his brown leather briefcase.  He rubbed the fatigue from his eyes, stood up and stretched, and then checked his watch.  It was nine at night.  They’d concluded their Midwest tour and their search for new talent this season.  Two months from now, the contestants chosen for the finals would be flown out to Las Vegas for recorded try outs, and then the competition would be televised and drawn out for network ratings and commercial time.  In the background, the unit producer and a few interns from CBS packed up the show, and with few words, the traveling operation was dismantled.

Brock and Ryan exited the community center with two local security officers at their sides.  They were each dead ringers for Don Knotts.  Their hands were comically arched over their guns ready to shoot themselves in the foot.  One of the officers tried to enquire if his farting daughter had made it into finals.

Brock had to lie.  “They’re all under serious consideration.  Everybody's got a fair shot."

Once they made it safely to their vehicle, the two cops said goodnight. Brock drove their Winnebago straight out of Ralston, Kansas, and twenty-five miles later, they hit the nearest watering hole off exit 90A.  The place was called The Cactus Gulp.  The bar had a country western feel, though in actuality, it was a ramshackle piss stop with the occasional dying cactus on display and a jukebox that exclusively played down-and-out country music.

Brock said to Ryan as they searched for a place to sit, “I’d say this was the armpit of the universe, but I think it’s more accurately the sweaty area between your leg and crotch part of the universe.”

“Je-sus,” Ryan whistled, turning his eyes over the downtrodden folks in the bar who eyed them back sternly.  “Maybe this is the wrong place for a drink.”

"Nah.  Give it a shot.  If things go bad, we book it out of here."

They sat down at the bar.  The bar maid was friendly.  She wore boots with spurs, a red plaid t-shirt, and tight blue jeans.  Her dirty blonde hair was styled in a pony tail with a blue ribbon holding it all together.  “How you folks doin’?  After a day of round up, you two sure look plenty bushy-eyed.  Well, I’ll rope ya back in.  What can I get to parch those dry throat of yers?"

“I have something that'll parch your throat, honey,” an old man belted out from four seats down.  He gripped his oversized belt buckle with one hand and tipped back a brown bottle into his mouth with the other.  “Shucks, I’d do it for ya anytime, sweetie honey.  Just come over her and get on all fours.  Howdy howdy!"

“Go stick it in a cow’s ass, Bill."  Then flipping him off, she added, "Ah shucks.”

She turned back to her new customers, her scowl going soft.  Brock could spot a fake hick/country impersonation, and this woman crafted it well.  “You’re not really a cowpoke gal, are you?”

“No, but my boss insists I act the part.  I think it’s some kinky fantasy he’s got in his head.  I’m between semesters at Kansas University.  I’m just making ends meet.  My parents live a few miles from this place.  I save money on rent by living at home.”  With that personal nugget disclosed, she asked, “What ya have tonight, pardners?”

Ryan scanned the rows of hard liquor, noting the choices were lacking in anything better than middle to bottom shelf.  Ryan asked if she had any imported beer.

“Nothing descent except our local brew, Cactus Juice Ale.”

“He’ll have a Cactus Juice Ale,” Brock said.  “This guy loves local brews.”

Ryan huffed at Brock.  “Okay, I'm a good sport.  I'll try it, but this guy wants a soda, minus the hair of the dog.”

The woman turned her head to the side.  “So a soda, right?”

Brock smiled.  “Yes, just a soda.  I don’t drink.”

“Then what are you doin’ here?”

“I like the,” Brock paused, watching a young man put two quarters into the mechanical bull in the corner, but before finishing the transaction, he stumbled onto the floor and lost his change, “ambiance of the place.”

"One beer and a soda.  No problem."

The woman shuffled to the bar to fulfill their orders.

Brock appreciated Ryan supporting his sobriety.  He was two years sober, what was also the length of his tenure as a judge on “America’s Got Flair.”  Alcohol wasn’t his only vice.  Cocaine was his other demon.

Ryan forced Brock from his thoughts.  “You okay? I’m worried about you.  I know what that face means.”

Brock thanked the bar maid for his soda.  She went right back to work.

“What face?”

“The drowning fish look.”

Brock did his best not to think too deeply on the comment.  The trick to keeping his nose clean and his liver functioning was staying busy.  This job kept him occupied year round, except for the upcoming two months, and those were the hardest to stay sober and out of trouble. Ryan would return to his wife and kids, a life, and all Brock had was debt and a lonely apartment that reeked of starting over.  And that was starting over for a man who was fifty-two years old.

Brock restrained the tears.  “I’m worried, is all.  I’ve got two months to myself.  Idle hands, you know?”

Ryan sipped his Cactus Juice Ale.  His face scrunched up like a dead California raisin.  “This beer tastes like camel cunt.  Sorry, as you were saying?"

“I’m scared that I’m going to start drinking again, or worse.”

“I know you're scared.  It’s something you never get over.”  Ryan’s face became one of understanding, and in the dim lighting, he suddenly looked much older than his thirty-nine years.  “I remember your father. I worked with Gene for almost three years before he passed away.  I was only a behind-the-scenes guy at the time.  Your father was the face, the host, the personality of TV in the seventies and eighties.  He was the man.  Gene was on five game shows, two different late-night talk shows, and he hosted The Academy Awards like three times.  That man was on-top of the world.  You couldn't best him."

"Yeah," Brock sighed.  "He was on top of everything, and then he just dies of a stroke two weeks after his seventieth birthday.  He was a good man, but he had vices.  I learned it all from him."

"You're doing better than your father, no offense, Brock.  You're taking care of yourself.  You're learning from your mistakes.  You're not like your father at all."

“I wish I never inherited any of that money or that damn mansion off Sunset Boulevard."  A scowl burned Brock's face. “Angel and I split my dad's money between us.  We lived the high life for almost nine years in that Goddamn mansion.  My sister and I forgot everything.  We just partied.  I hardly remember a Goddamn thing that happened when we lived there.  The accountants handled the bills, and we just snorted and drank our way into debt.  Pretty much ten years gone like that.

“Gene would be ashamed of me, ruining his good name like I did.  And Angel, I haven’t been in touch with her since our finances collapsed.  My sister's out of my life completely.  I’d have to hire a private investigator to find her.  What kind of a brother am I?  I supported her habit.  I’m her big-brother, and I let it happen.  I might struggle with kicking the habit, but Angel, God be with her, I don’t know how strong she is.  And now I’m going to be alone for two months with all this shit to think about.  I’ve got you and this bar tonight, sure, and when we pack it up tomorrow morning after we check out of our hotel, that’s it.  It’s me, myself, and I, and I’m so tempted to go back to that old life because that’s all there is.  But I can’t.  I’ll die if I do. I just know it.  I’ll go out like my dad did.

“Listen, before you say anything else, Ryan, I know I'm only famous because of Gene.  I’m a joke.  I'm washed up.  This talent show gig is a paying job, and it’s distracted me from my problems, but I’m still a joke.  The son of Gene Richards.  There are eighteen books and four movies based on the man’s life and three women claiming to have his love-child, and now, I’m feeding off of that.  I'm a bottom feeder.  A washed up future reality star loser.  The people out there relish failures and fuck-ups like me.  Hey world, you thought Gene Richards was messed up, well, watch his equally fucked-up son host a talent show, and oh, he’s trying to clean up.  That’s cute and everything, but we’re really watching him to see how long it will take for his train to derail, and when it does, the pubic will eat it the fuck up."

Ryan decided the Cactus Juice Ale wasn’t so bad after all and drank up.  “Forget all of that nonsense.  Who gives a shit if people think you’re a joke?  Does anybody take any of these jokers on TV seriously?  Once our moment in time is up, we’re somebody’s punch line, somebody’s TV movie, and like you said, you’re only useful as long as you’re entertaining.  But you have a life, Brock. You might have to look between the cracks and see what’s fallen in there and see what you still want that's down there, but you’ll find something good, I promise you.  But only if you keep looking."

Brock sighed.  "I have to keep busy.  Keep my mind off my mind."

“You've got the right attitude.  Stay busy.  Grab a woman by the titties, look up an old friend, or hey, refurnish your apartment, or better yet, knowing your sense-of-humor, why not start a page on that website about all those ex-famous people called "Washed Up and Loving It?" Really turn the tables on those tabloid assholes."

Brock started to enjoy the taste of his soda again.  Perhaps he’d been looking at his time alone the wrong way.  “Maybe I’ll bust out the biggest jigsaw puzzle in history.  It'll have to be a thousand piece job.  Maybe a puzzle with a kitty cat on it.  There's that impossible one with a hundred Dalmatian dogs on it.  It's really hard to finish."

Ryan held up his bottle in cheers, and Brock clanked his glass against his friend’s.  “To making good use of your time.”

Brock celebrated the toast, though he still held his reservations about what the next two months could hold for him.

COMING HOME

After catching a flight from Illinois to San Diego, Brock realized he did have something to go home to, and her name was Hannah Riley—or Sheryl Flynn, that being her acting name.  Hannah waited at the San Diego Airport terminal for his arrival.  Seeing her, Brock was so grateful for the pleasant surprise.  He caught Hannah mark her place in a romance novel and met up with him.  The woman was beautiful despite her wear—and who was he kidding, his face was as worn as the tires of an old dirt bicycle rode hard—with her one hundred and twenty pound physique sculpted by aerobics and dieting.  Hannah had platinum blonde hair, natural aqua blue eyes, and that winning smile; the very reason she became an actress in the first place.  Those lips could boast sexually prowess, heartfelt emotion, and conniving bitch.  The problem, after ten years of riding the white pony, Hannah lost that inner actress and never reclaimed it, though according to her agent, it was simply her time to move on from the business because the business had moved on from her.

Hannah wasn’t his girlfriend, but instead an old friend who exchanged romantic niceties from time to time.  She didn’t want marriage, because she’d done the marriage dance three times, and she had finally said enough.  They had a special bond together.  She had participated in what Brock called the legacy of Gene Richards.  She had partied down at his father's mansion alongside Brock and his sister until they had successful dismantled each of their own successes.  Hannah called herself a rehab queen.  They were each other's liaisons into sobriety.  Best friends.

Brock dragged along his airport bag on wheels.  Reaching her, Brock hugged Hannah close.   “What a surprise.  I didn’t expect you to be here.  Seriously.” It would’ve been a long trip in a public bus, since he didn’t own a car, to lower Beverly Hills.  “How did you know I was going to be here?”

“I called Ryan, and he dished the details."  She worked a strand of blonde hair from her the edge of her mouth with a finger.  “And here I am.  I have really good news.  But first, let’s get out of this place.  I hate terminals.”

They walked to the parking garage three levels down and reached the Honda Civic parked in the orange level.  After storing his bag in the trunk, Brock plopped down on the passenger seat, and Hannah took the wheel.  After driving out of the airport, then getting onto the interstate, they had a decent drive ahead of them.  During that time, Hannah shared an exciting piece of good news.

After hearing it, Brock asked, “So what’s the movie you're going to be in called?"

Hannah tried not to laugh.  “It’s called Dust Devils.  It’s about these insects in the Sahara Desert who grow to the size of dogs, but they’re like mites, but with teeth, and they can fly, and they can eat a person in two seconds.  It’s a straight to cable release, but hey, it’s work.  I’m playing a bug specialist and an adventurer.  They say I get to wear my boots and spurs like back in my old western movie days, and unlike those macho westerns films, I get to wear the guns this time.  Two six-shooters.  I’m the man this time.  I’m shooting my phallic pistols at the monsters and slaying the evil.”

Brock was genuinely happy for her.  “How did you get the job, you star you?”

“A new agent contacted me, and he said there’s a market for aged actors and actresses to be in b-movies.  It's mostly science fiction and horror flicks, but they pay—they pay, Brock!  I need this.  I could be doing tampon commercials, and I’d still be ecstatic, though I about shit myself when I learned I get to wear spurs again. I loved being in westerns.  There's something so romantic about it.  Horses and leather and hot grizzled men get me hot."

Brock suffered a pang of concern.  If this movie landed her other gigs, would she drop off of his radar now that she wasn’t completely washed up anymore like him?  You selfish prick, be happy for her.

He sweetened his words to cover up his thoughts.  “So when do you start working?”

“I fly out to New Mexico in two weeks.  That leaves me time to get into character."

The next two months would be hell to survive, he remembered.  Brock needed a plan and fast.  He did his best to keep it from showing on his face, but he’d never been an actor or TV personality like his father.  He was a son riding his father’s success, those coattails extended for decades.  He judged people of their talent without having a talent of his own.

You’ve been sober two years.

That’s no cakewalk.

And you’re working on your book.  You’re not on your way to a casket anymore.  If that’s not talent, then America sucks balls, and who’s the biggest cock sucker?

Concern bogged down Hannah’s voice.  “Tell me what’s wrong?”

The air he sucked in was ice cold.  Brock was shaking.  It was a residual habit when he craved cocaine in the past.  She touched his wrist and caressed it, then she put his hand against her chest.  She kissed his hand, leaving the rouge lipstick imprint on his skin.  It had been her signature when she was an A-star actress.

“Don’t think I’m leaving you, Brock.  I’m working, yes, but,” she forced modesty, “it’s a three week shoot.  I’m practically being paid nothing.  I’m excited over a bug movie.”

Brock tried to be happy for her and leave it at that.  “You just want to wear your cowboy outfit again so you can get dolled up and purdy.”

Hannah smiled.  “We’re celebrating tonight.  I’m not abandoning you.  I’m calling you, texting you, sending your postcards, photocopying my ass to you, everything.  Brock, it’s going to be fine.  We're going to be fine.  You're not going to slip, Brock.  You're too strong now for that."

He wasn't so sure, but he played along anyway.  This was Hannah's moment, and Brock wasn't going to ruin it.

DATE TONIGHT

Hannah dropped Brock off at his apartment in lower Beverly Hills.  His residence was in the middle class sector far enough from the movie studios and Hollywood for a man like him to afford rent.  Brock proceeded up the steps to the third floor and arrived at his apartment.  Considering how modest the apartment was, nobody would think the son of the famous Gene Richards lived here.  He was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, including rehab bills and back taxes.  Being a talent scout wasn’t the most lucrative job in Hollywood, especially for a b-grade celebrity, but he was surviving and keeping his nose clean.

Once inside, he checked his machine for messages.

There was one from Ryan.

"Hey man, I just wanted to see if you got back safely.  Keep in touch.  Tell me how you’re holding up.  I’m thinking about you, man.  Don’t give up.  I believe in you.  Call me."

Brock unpacked his dirty clothes, took the journey downstairs to shove quarters into the washing machines and started the laundry.  Brock returned to his room to shower and slip into more comfortable clothes.  He was too tired to do much of anything, so he lazed on his bed reading a novel about a man who finds out he has eight different children by eight different mistresses.  It wasn’t long before he drifted to sleep, and he didn’t wake up again until Hannah called.

“This is your wake up call, handsome.  You still up for getting plowed?  I'll come by at eight."

“Let's open the bubbly and drink ourselves into a coma!  I’ll see you at eight.”

Brock was the type of person to be inspired by deadlines.  He had two hours before Hannah arrived.  Hurrying downstairs, he fished out the laundry from the washing machine and switched it over to the dryer.  He vacuumed the apartment, opened up the windows to let in the breeze and filter out that not-so-lived-in-apartment-smell.   He checked the automatic feeder on his zebra tetra aquarium.  Changing into khaki pants and slipping on his running shoes, he ventured out to the grocery store for basic food supplies, but first, he checked his mail box on the first floor.  Twenty envelopes were stuffed in the slot, junk mail and bills mostly.  He tucked the collection under his arm, and when he turned to leave, Carlos Miloh, the building's superintendant, was sweeping the front steps and greeted him.

“Brock, when did you get back?"

“This afternoon.”  He thought on it a second.  “We’re paid up until the end of the month, right?”

Carlos was five feet tall with sun burnt skin darkened to a fine Mexican gold.  He wore a dirtied top and black jeans.  He was the kind of man who took pride in the upkeep of his building and worked with his two sons, both teenagers, to perform the hard work of maintaining the building.  He knew of Brock’s job and was very interested.

“Yes sir, we’re square.  Did you find anybody talented?”

“A kid who could blow farts out her ass like a bean curd champion.  Other than that, it’s mostly singing and dancing.  Same old."

Carlos scoffed.  “Ah, anybody can sing and dance.  Me, I can outrun immigration and speak English better than some of your born and raised Americans.  Now that's talent."

Brock enjoyed how good of a sport Carlos was about Mexican stereotypes.  “I’m keeping my eye on you.  You’ve got flair, pal."

Brock piled the mail on his kitchen table and then went back out to hit Hinkley’s Market two blocks from the apartment building.  He passed the Beverly Hills Open Air Park and watched the Frisbee golfers, joggers, dog walkers, and the late picnicking couples on the way.  For all the fear of lapsing on his sobriety, the clean air, the activity, seeing healthy people live, all of it was cleansing.  Hannah was coming over in an hour.  Today was going to be fine, he thought.  He was going to be okay.

Hannah was with him during his rehab.  They fought through the tough times together, becoming better friends at the end of it, but Angel, his sister, didn’t survive rehab very long.  She broke out after the first week, and two years later, she was a ghost to him.   If Angel had died, he wouldn’t know it.

He went from one high to a drastic low thinking about his sister.

Look her up.  She needs her brother.  I’m the one who was right there with her feeding her cocaine.  We had all that inheritance money, and we partied it all away at Dad's mansion.  We destroyed that place.  We destroyed each other.

Face it, Angel hates you.  She'd never talk to you again.

The last thing Angel said to him before she left Brock at the rehabilitation clinic was, “I hate you, Brock.  Thanks to you, I’m a goddamn coke head.  Thanks to you...thanks to you, I'll always be this way.”

He had apologized to Angel so many times in his head, if only he could locate her and actually say what was on his mind.  Their mother Brock called the black widow.  The woman took her part of the inheritance and bolted out of their lives.

Brock arrived at the store, forcing himself to think about his grocery list instead of his family.  He purchased enough supplies to last him two weeks and returned home.  By then, he had ten minutes before Hannah showed up.

ANGEL RICHARDS

Angel Richards couldn't understand the method by which she was hanging by the neck.  She had bled a great deal from the collection of wounds her body had suffered, though she felt no sensation.  No pain.  No agony.  Nothing.  She smelled mold on the walls and something else she couldn't place.  Something very wrong.  The mysteries in the room kept her searching for what had happened to her being suspended in the air by the neck.  Silence for the past few hours, she kept trying to speak but what came out of her throat was useless air.  She wasn't even breathing.  Somehow, she was still alive, thinking, and processing information.  But how?  What had the man with the golden axe done to her?

The axe attacker was a juggernaut of a man standing at 6 '4.  He was as wide and hulking as a grizzly bear and just as fearless.  The man with the golden axe stank of blood, sweat, and other people's fear.  Angel had been running from the axe man, but how she got here in this room, the memory was fuzzy.  She tried to fight her restraints, but with no sensation or ability to move, it was pointless.

The distant thud of steps from upstairs indicated someone had entered the house.  Angel could sense the house tense up upon the arrival.  The doors, the windows, the floorboards, the foundation all stiffened.  One step at a time down a staircase, she knew it was the man with the golden axe who was coming.

Angel could sense the shadows shift when his bulk entered the room.  The shape pivoted towards her.  Closer he came.  Close enough, Angel could see he was carrying another body over his shoulder.  He dropped it onto the concrete, though it didn't make the sound it should've, as if it was softened by other bodies already on the floor.

That's what she was smelling.

Death.

Rotting bodies.

Hacking up snot and spitting it up against the wall with a piggish grunt, the man with the golden axe went to work.  He was busy with many tasks to accomplish at once and balancing various methods on how to go about them.  Turning on the light, the bright amber beam filled the room, blinding her like a camera's flash.  Slowly, the details of the room registered as the blotches in her eyes faded.  What she witnessed would've sent her legs running up the stairs to prevent the man with the golden axe from harming her again.  She would've screamed, how she would've screamed, if only she could escape this place, if only she had never come to this town, if only she wasn't a severed head hanging from a meat hook.

A NIGHT TOGETHER

“Can’t you see I’m desperate for justice?”

“You can’t get justice from squashing a bug.  Dead bugs don’t say they’re sorry.  Dead bugs don’t bring the dead back to life.  Dead bugs don’t make the pain any easier.”

“To hell with you!  It makes me feel better scraping their crunchy bodies off my boots.  I’ll show those Dust Devils no mercy.  They ate my father, they ate my mother, they even ate Baxter, and there’s no replacing that Collie.  He was one of a kind."

“Get your head out of the clouds, Mary-Beth.  This is your life.  If you die, who gives the eulogy?  Me, Mary-Beth, I'd give the eulogy, and you know what’d I say?  She was the greatest woman I’ve known and loved, and she’s dead all over some fucking bugs.  Is it worth it, Mary-Beth, giving your life up for those bugs?”

“I’m the only one who knows how to stop them, Craig.  I’ve spent years with the insects, studying them, gaining their trust, helping them exist.”

“So why did the government want them to flourish?”

“The Executive in Chief wanted a terrorist weapon that wouldn’t nuke the world.  Fallout’s a bitch, right?  Nuke the Middle East, and the breeze would blow back cancer in our faces.  But image a bug that was commanded to kill terrorists?  They've given them mega-intelligence, mega-size, and the only shot we have of taking them out is giving them a bullet right between the eyes, and I’m the best shot in this stinkin’ part of town.”

Hannah stood in Brock's living room clutching the handles of the two cap gun six shooters holstered at her hips.  She urged tears to well up in her eyes, her face brimming with believable emotion.  She wore a short red skirt, black fishnets, a blue and white checkered flannel top, and brown snakeskin boots with spurs from her old western movie called Cactus Heart, Cactus Moon.

Finished with her dialogue, Hannah tipped her hat to him, her eyes a blazing show of sexual heat.  Her mouth was drawn into a pout, her eyes languidly set.  She brought him in close.  Removing each other's clothes, they threw aside the movie script and began acting out a new scene altogether.

Brock watched Hannah strut about the room in her purple bra and panties.  She stayed dressed in her boot and spurs as she filled a cup with ice in the kitchen.  “How about some bubbly to cap off the good sex?”

“I already capped off once.”

Hannah playfully rolled her eyes.  “It’s always about a man’s cock.”

“That’s all there is, really.”  He eyed the table stocked with booze.  “Let’s get wild and crazy.”

Hannah kneeled down on the coffee table and announced the selections.  “Sparkling grape juice, sparking apple juice, or orange pop?”

“I’ll have a bit of sparkling grape juice. That’ll take the edge off.”

Hannah poured two wine flutes and sat next to him.  He was ready to down his but he noticed she was eyeing him with the intent to say something else.

He poised his glass next to hers.  “What’s on your mind?”

She lowered her glass, not ready to announce her toast just yet.  “I want you to think about things, Brock, because I have. You always blamed yourself for dragging me into this mess.  All the parties you invited me to, all the free drugs you offered me when we were younger, and yes, it was a bad thing, but we both made the mistakes, but the mistakes are ultimately mine to own.  I had a choice.  And when it came time to clean up my act, we did it together, and I’ve gotten to know you, and we’ve made an incredible journey together.  We've been through everything.  Three months in rehab.  Two years of sobriety.  You saw me at my worst moments, and I've seen you at your lowest.  After sobering up this long, everything became so much clearer to me.  I know what I want in life.  I want to act again, and I want you to be my husband.”

Brock opened his mouth, but Hannah spoke first.  “Just think about it for awhile, okay?  I have this movie coming up, so there’s time to think it over.  I want you to really think it over."

He understood what she was saying and was grateful for the chance to really take it in.  Brock took her hand and kissed it, and then he raised his glass.  “To making good decisions, to being in control of our lives, and um, to the washed up who somehow find their way back to a paycheck.”

Hannah raised hers proudly.

They downed the bubbly into the late hours of the night.

* * *

It was one a.m., and Hannah was asleep in his bed.  Brock spooned her.  “Are you sure staying here won't piss off your sister?  I could drive you home.  I know how much she hates me."

“What, drive?  You'd blow a 2.0 on the sugar-lizer.  Besides, my sister's got a man, and I don't mess with that, do I?  The only thing you need to worry about is being my man, so you stay in this bed and let me worry about my sister."

Brock whispered in her ear, “You’ve given me the greatest friendship in my life.  I have fallen in love with you.  It's the truth.  Whatever that means, I know it’s going to take us many places.”

Hannah enjoyed the words.  “We can go on trips together. That’s what married people do."

“And we can share the food on each other’s plates.”

He cleared his mind before falling asleep. “You’ve given me a lot to think about it, cow poke.  Good things.  I think I’ll stick with my original plan when you go do your movie.  I'm going to write my book.  A memoir.”

“You’re not going to publish it, are you?”

"No, this is only for me, though God knows someone would pay to publish it.  Once I write it out, I’ll read over it, and that’ll be it.  It’s therapeutic.  A woman from the Bingo club said writing things helped her deal with her obnoxious husband.  She said it was like yelling at the pages, and she could be as colorful with her language as she wanted to be and nobody’s feelings got hurt.”

“Are you still going to all your clubs?”

Brock listed them off his fingers.  “Yeah, the Bingo club, the book club, the support group, oh, and the movie club."

“Looking for work is my hobby,” Hannah said, her posture suddenly erect.  Brock knew she was picturing herself on a horse riding with a rugged, well-built cowboy, into the sunset after a shootout outside of the saloon.  She had been in dozens of westerns in her heyday, from the late 60's to the early 80's.  “Acting and you are all I want, Brock."

Brock brought her in close, kissing her lips.  “Listen, I want you to do something for me, and I'm serious.”

“Anything."

He whispered to her before going to sleep, “I want you to kill each and every one of those dust devils before they take over the world.”

Hannah drove home shortly after waking up the following morning, saying she had calls and preparations to make with her agent.  Her sister would be concerned if she didn't check in as well.  Brandy was a small claims court lawyer, and she had witnessed her sister's battle with drugs from the beginning to the present.   Brandy despised Brock, but if they were thinking about marrying each other, he was determined to grow on the woman.  He would prove himself redeemable, or in the very least, a changed man.

Brock thought about the prospect of marriage.  Fifty-two years old, and he hadn’t been married once.  His dad convinced him not to take that option when Brock was working full-time on his variety show backstage as a production assistant, and eventually climbing the ranks to be assistant director and producer, the jobs granted by a heaping dose of nepotism.  Gene would say to him, “You’re in the perfect position to tackle the most pussy ever in the history of pussy.  Why get married, like your old man?  Be smart, kiddo."

Brock had followed the man's advice.  He dated on and off for years, meeting women at parties.  He went beyond his father's show to produce a number of mildly successful movies, including Hannah’s last feature, Desert Shootout in 1985 that bombed.  It wasn’t long after that his father died, and his world became that deplorable mansion and the longest track of cocaine history ever told.

By marrying Hannah, he'd gain a sense of permanency.  He was wiser now.  He had cleared the wreckage of his life.  Those comforting thoughts vanished once he returned to his room and sorted through the mail and discovered Angel's letter.

HEAD ON A HOOK

Angel Richards was indeed a severed head suspended in the air with a meat hook jammed up into her neck.  The rusted and cold steel tip tickled the back of her throat. While the man with the golden axe went to work doing God knows what, she observed various tools hanging from the wall opposite her head.  Each item was suspended from rusty nails: hacksaws, pinch clamps, fifteen different hammers with various heads, a table saw with an enormous blade jutting out like the quelled spine of a metal beast, and many varieties of common tools, but there were also components of the collection that were unusual.  She was puzzled by the hinges, gears, pulleys, springs, and alien tools that had no obvious purpose.

From the half of the room she wasn't hanging in, the man with the golden axe swung his weapon of choice, that golden killer, that vicious axe, over and over again.  The sound of bones breaking and blood flecking the wall repeated.  The man growled under his breath, "Never wanted this.  They have me where they want me, don't they?  I do all the work.  I'm so sick of this work!  You started this, I didn't.  You're using me to keep this damn game going."

Through a mouthful of blood, the victim, who she assumed had been dismantled limb from limb, screamed: "Ga-raaaaaaaaagh!"

"Don't."  The axe man twirled the axe in his hands, letting his arms rest a moment between swings.  "Stay calm.  I'll have you back together in no time.  I'm really good at it.  I'm the best.  I promise you I'll put you back together and you'll be better than ever."

It wasn't long before the victim went silent.

Dead?

She didn't know.

Angel wasn't certain if the axe man was addressing her.  "They always overreact.  Why can't they learn it's only temporary?  Telling them isn't enough.  Telling them is never enough."

The man dropped the axe onto the concrete floor.  Then he went to work picking up the dismembered pieces.  She heard the dripping of fast-flowing blood, then the plastic thuck of something being dropped into a bin until each body part was accounted for.

Angel would've screamed if she had lungs when the man with the golden axe's hands caressed her face with his cold and red hands.

He spoke in a rasp, "I'm going to fix you next."

ANGEL'S LETTER

Brock,

I got your address from a friend, and I hope you don’t mind me writing you.  It’s been years, and I hear you’ve sobered up.  I struggle with it all the time. I relapse a lot, but I’m convinced I can’t move forward without talking to you first.  Maybe if I learned how you did it, I could beat this too.  In any case, I need to see you, Brock.  Can you visit me?  I’ve included a map and directions to where I’m staying.  Come as soon as possible.  I promise we’ll have a serious talk.  We might argue.  No, we will argue, but I promise we’ll catch up on old times too.  I can’t believe it’s been two years since I last saw you. I don’t want my last memory of my brother to be at rehab.  The place I’m staying is scenic.  It's calming.  I’m on another sober kick.  Three weeks sober.  What amazes me, no matter where you are, somebody has a drug connection, even in the middle of nowhere where I’m at now.  I need help, Brock.  I’m ready to start over.  I know we’re not best friends, or even act like brother and sister, but maybe we could try to salvage something.  What do you say?

Angel

* * *

It had been instinct to rip open the oversized manila envelope when Brock first saw it, especially when he caught Angel Richards’s name on it.  The letter left him standing by the table uncollected.  The mood went from sky high to slum low.

It’s your fault she’s still a cokehead.

You did this, and you left her.

No, she left you.

We failed each other.

Brock clutched his head and sat down, feeling dizzy.  His fault or not, her life was in turmoil.  Knowing that, his conflict wasn’t if he’d see her, it’d be what he would say to her when he finally arrived in Blue Hills, Virginia.

Brock couldn’t sleep that night.  He lay in bed and images and memories would play out in his mind.  He tossed and turned long enough that he gave up on sleep and walked to the kitchen table with his brand new spiral notebook and began writing his thoughts down, the tell-all memoir only he would read.

There’s no order to this confessional, so I’ll just start writing, he thought.

So he started writing.

Poor Angel is in some place in Virginia.  She wants me to meet up with her.  I’m so nervous.  I have to go.  I have a few things to take care of tomorrow but it'll be fine.  A road trip will get my mind off of my mind.  It’s better than doing a puzzle alone at the apartment.

What can I bring to the table to help Angel?  ‘Stay busy,’ wow, that revelation will knock her on her ass.  No, I’ll make her move in with me.  She can’t leave until she’s two months sober.  Then four months sober.  That's what I'll do.  Yeah right.  That won't work.

"This isn’t going to be easy.  She’ll want to claw out my eyes.  All the shit I’ve done to her."

Brock couldn’t pin down his thoughts any longer.  It was already three in the morning.  In a few hours, he would wake up, plot out his trip, and then figure out just how he was going to help his sister.

Angel had gained sensation in her body again to an extent.  Her fingers would bend and straighten, then curl up again because of the razor sharp agony cycling through her defiled body.  Not defiled, she realized.  She was laying flat on a steel gurney as the man with the golden axe pivoted her body, flexing her limbs.  Testing them.  She kept hearing the squeak of hinges, springs loaded into tight crevices, ratchets turned, and nuts and bolts tightened and greased up...

BLUE HILLS, VIRGINIA

9 Days Ago, an Hour After Piedmont Cemetery Melted.

Something didn't feel right, and Martha Bonnard's instincts were keen when it came to bad feelings.  Something just didn't feel right.  For starters, her back was sore.  The ache was a nag between her shoulder blades.  The muscles were tender, as if she'd just undergone surgery.  She didn't feel like this last night.  Whatever had happened, it occurred overnight.  It occurred without her knowledge.  Martha wanted to check her back in the bathroom mirror when she heard the crack of Bernie's rifle ring out.

"Stay the hell out," Bernie shouted, poised in front of the open bay window in the living room.  "There's nothing here for you.  What's ours is ours!"

"Bernie what's happening?  Why are you firing your gun out there?"

Three shots fired in succession, then Bernie re-loaded.  "I told Ray to stay out of my yard. I warned him.  I stood my ground.  I warned the dumb bastard.  Told him I was a damn good shot.  He'll take that to his grave.  I'll have to check his pockets when the coast is clear.  Hey, he's dead.  It's not stealing. Why let it go to waste?"

Her husband was muttering nonsense to himself.  Bernie was in his bath robe.  The cloth at his back was soaked in traces of blood in the shape of a square.

"Honey, put the gun down.  Why are you shooting out the window?  You're making me nervous."

"You stay back, Martha.  I can't trust anyone.  You'd kill me too.  People like you would do anything for money.  I'm not being taken in my own home."

"Bernie, listen, you have to calm down—"

"You take another step, I'll cut you down!  You're like the rest of them.  They're all thieves.  I was about to take my morning walk, and I saw it happen.  Everybody's out of their minds.  We'll all be slitting each other's throats soon enough.  I'm not dying for anyone.  Not them, and not you, Martha, so if you don't mind, take that wedding ring off of your finger.  Place it on the coffee table.  Then I want you to give me the key to the lock box, and that's if you haven't already taken everything from it already.  It's my money.  I worked for it.  You were a fucking housewife all your life.  You should be the first to die.  It most certainly won't be me."

The intensity in Bernie's words was downgraded when she looked at her hand.  Her wedding ring was gone.  It stayed on her finger at all times.  In the past, it took soap and a good yank to remove it, the band was so tight.  But it was gone.  She didn't take it off.  So where was her wedding ring?

Martha suddenly smelled the reek of death cross her nose.  The foul odor traveled inside through the front bay window.  It was a cloud of ugly yellowish air.  She heard voices on the wind.  Subtle voices, but each owned individual character.  Martha's Grandmother, then her best friend who died two years ago from cancer, and her high school sweetheart who lived in town (who she always harbored a fancy for long after their break-up) who passed away because of a drunk driving accident, each of their voices said what she needed to hear in that moment.  The pain in her back was explained, as was the blood on Bernie's robe, as was Bernie's need for her wedding ring.

Not that he'd be getting it!

Someone else crossed their yard, and Bernie unloaded three rounds into their body.  Martha didn't give him a chance to re-load.  She jammed the steak knife she stole from the kitchen through the back of his neck and out his trachea.  Then she stole Bernie's rifle and pushed him out of the bay window.

She had to protect herself.

Nobody was going to take what was hers.

PLANNING  A TRIP

Brock checked the Internet for Angel's location in Virginia.  She was staying at a bed and breakfast called the Piedmont Inn hidden near a series of foothills connected to the Appalachian Mountains.  The website bragged of its isolated locale.  "Twenty miles of seclusion in each cardinal direction, this tourist spot is known for its crisp, clean air and renewing scenery."

Maybe the high altitude has cleared her head, he thought.  Or maybe the air's thin enough, she's gone crazy enough to contact her brother again.

He checked the Internet for directions, trying to choose the best route to get there from lower Beverly Hills.  He could fly out, but he decided the next two months were going to drag themselves out without Hannah to kick around or any work to do on the TV show.  He had also heard of a writer named Wynona Wild who only wrote while traveling on the road.  She would stop at hotels, bed and breakfasts, rest stops, or any place that would let her park her vehicle, and write.  She had written an article about how the open road gave her the best ideas.  Wynona's mind was as open as a stretch of country back road.  He liked the idea enough to adopt it as his own.  His memoir had to be written, and this was the way he'd do it.

Brock rented a Land Rover from U-Rent-It-Automobile service since he didn't have a vehicle of his own.  He couldn't afford the payments with the tax debt he owed the government.  He required goodies for the trip, what consisted of a pound of licorice, four Snickers bars, a bag of cheese curls, and a family size bag of M&M's.  Afterwards, he hit an ATM machine for cash.  He could pick up the rental vehicle tomorrow morning.  He would've drove out to Angel today, but he had a few loose ends to tie, namely visiting his support group and asking advice from a knowledgeable friend about confronting his sister.

He was still at a loss on how to first approach Angel.  What do you say, Sis? Are you keeping your nose clean?

Afraid he'd get to a bad start with Angel, he decided to take the bus out to Sun View Rehab Clinic and ask Dr. Schmitz, the woman who practically saved his life by dishing out tough love and understanding.  The doctor would have solid advice about Angel.

Brock walked a block to the bus stop.  The bus was just coming down the street.  Getting on for a ride, it wasn't long before he caught sight of Gene Richards' old mansion.  The iron bars around the property and the extended lawn made the three-story lavish house appear so far out-of-reach to the average citizen.  The mansion was the reason why he had such an enormous debt.  He had to take out a bank loan just to make the repairs on the mansion so the realtors could sell the property.  Angel had literally flown the coup and vanished off the face of the earth, so that left him with the responsibilities, the paperwork, and the financial burden of their father's estate.  Up to now, that’s why Brock kept such a cheap living situation despite descent paying work.  The bus made his stop, and Brock got out and walked two blocks to the Sun View Rehab Clinic.  He didn't have an appointment.  That was one thing he didn't think about on the way there. He'd have to wait to speak to Dr. Schmidt.

Inside the resort-like building with swimming pools, elaborate sun decks, an outdoor workout center, and a nature trail around the perimeter, Brock didn't have to wait very long for help.  The receptionist said Dr. Schmitz would be ten minutes, so he sat in the waiting area with his legs crossed staring out at the swimming pool.  Ten people were sun-bathing, nervously lighting up cigarettes, or clutching their heads in their hands as if working off a massive hangover.  He could see the beginning of the living quarters down the hall.  He had stayed in room 14 during his tenure at Sun View.  Not wanting to face up to the memories he created here, Brock prayed the doctor would arrive soon and convince him that he didn’t ever have to face this kind of reality again.

Before Dr. Schmitz arrived, a familiar woman walked up to him.  Her name was Liza.  He couldn't remember her last name.  She had a cruel heroin habit.  Liza had acted alongside some of the greats in Hollywood as a co-star, then she went through a stint of unemployment, and when her agent dropped her, that's when she plunged herself completely into drug use.  She had checked herself in recently, he thought, noting her chalky white skin, bluish lips, and deep set eyes, and how she clutched her track marks on her forearm as if shielding them from rogue needles.  She was wearing a loose t-shirt and jeans with holes at the knees, the back of her black hair suffering from bed head. She froze on Brock and snarled.  Before he could defend himself, she was sitting in front of him, her hands on his knees to anchor him in place.

She interrogated Brock. "So did you fall off the wagon, Brock?"  She didn't let him respond.  "I've seen you on that show.  It's lame, even for you.  You're like a bottom feeder.  Who else did you drag down with you this time?  I haven't seen Angel in a very long time."  Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, a deathly show, but it was only her combing her mind for the right words.  "'Pale as snow, pale as snow, she sucked him off to get some blow,' isn't that what they used to say about Angel?  Don't talk, it's my turn to say something.  You'll get another job because Daddy will always save you.  Dead or alive, he'll look out for you.  I've heard all about you from Dr. Schmitz.  You're a success story.  Put you on a poster, or some shit.  You'll go to elementary schools and tell the kiddos 'Say no to drugs, kiddies, or else you'll end up washed up like me.'  Don't forget what you did to your sister.  I might be a heroine junkie, but I never dragged anyone down with me.  Fate lets the bad people prosper and the good ones suffer.  You don't deserve to be sober.  You don't deserve to bop in and out of here as if rehab was an option.

"Remember what you used to be, Brock?  The first time I saw you, you had your face stuck in a toilet puking your guts out, and then you shit your guts out.  God, it makes me laugh picturing you change positions on the shitter.  You were one powder-puff looking sorry excuse for a human being, like Casper the shitting ghost, and looking at you now, I see right through you.  You're trying to find Angel, aren't you?  You're going to reclaim your life.  Start over.  Fuck you, Brock, for even trying.  Angel hates you.  She told me she hates you.  She always will."

Brock kept opening and closing his mouth to speak, but Liza forced his words back down.  Now Liza was growing manic, reaching her tipping point, her words nonsensical gibberish of hatred as she dug her nails into his knees, slapping his face, crying and shrieking out, and he tried to calm her, but she was inconsolable.  She ripped the clinic walls with her words, "No—don't talk—don't you talk to me!"

Before Brock could be thrown against the ground by Liza's force,  two white-clothed orderlies grabbed a hold of her and dragged her to her room.  Her shrieks faded as the two orderlies carried her away.

Brock touched his cheek.  She clawed him once, though the marks didn't bleed.  He hung his head down, blowing out a deep breath of air and feeling his heart settle in his chest.  "I guess I deserved that."

"No you didn’t, Brock."

A gray haired woman in her late forties dressed in a lab coat, jeans, and an aqua green midriff approached him.  Dr. Schmitz had suffered more wear and tear on her face from the last time he'd seen her.  The doctor's everyday routine involved a mix of movie stars, rock stars, and average people with enough money to afford Sun View who fought withdraw with varying success rates.  She was happy to see Brock because he wasn’t one of the troubled.  She hooked her arm though his and kindly ushered him to her corner office.

Edging the door closed, she then sat behind her desk and offered Brock a seat.  "So what brings you by, besides being mauled by Liza Stanfield?"

"Stanfield, that's her last name.  I'm so sorry me being here caused that."

"She's on suicide watch, but I don't believe locking up a person in that deplorable condition is healthy.  They need sunshine, human interaction, and who knows, maybe taking the jabs at you will make her feel better."

"That woman blew her top.  She wanted me dead."

Dr. Schmitz pointed at his neck.  "Are you sure you’re okay?"

He waved her concerns aside.  "I'm fine.  I needed a wake-up call.  I came here without an appointment.  It's Karma catching up with me."

"I never believed in Karma.  Or luck.  Things happen, or they don't, and whether you get what you want in life or not, its earned.  Only the timing is luck, and still, it's up to the person to react and deal with their situation, good or bad."  She picked up a snow globe on her desk of Sun View Rehab Clinic inside it and shook it up.  "Take Liza, for instance.  She was doing great four months ago.  She was determined to quit drugs.  She was going to New York for work in the Broadway musical Cats.  Sure, it's a smaller role, but it's work, and she gets caught up in how she used to be an A-lister, and how she deserves better, and then the drugs creep back in, and back here to rehab she goes.  Liza's got a long road ahead of her to recovery."

She placed the snow globe back onto the desk.  "I'm proud of you, Brock.  I watch "America's Got Flair" every Tuesday when the new ones are on.  You're always good at pointing out the obvious in a deadpan kind of way to the contestants."  The way she asked the question, the doctor seemed to be afraid he was here to check himself back into rehab.  "So what brings you back to us, Brock?"

He was proud to reassure her he wasn't returning for a stay at California's best rehab clinic.  "I received a letter from my sister.  I guess she's holed up," he laughed, "at a bed and breakfast in Virginia.  Can you believe it?"

"What is Angel doing these days?"

It was terrible her own brother didn't know these things, he thought.  "I don't know.  But she wrote me saying she wanted to see me. It's been two years since I've had any contact. I'm driving out tomorrow on a little road trip to visit her."

"Oh fun.  So you're probably wondering how you should handle the visit."

He nodded, overhearing another raucous cry from down the hall.  When it tapered off, he continued, though he wondered if it was poor Liza again.  "Yes.  I don't want to say the wrong thing, or scare her off again.  I don't know if she's sober, happy, needing money, or just wanting to kick my ass."

Dr. Schmitz thought for a second.  "Then don't go into the visit thinking she needs anything except a friendly conversation.  Talk to her.  If she needs something more, whether it be money, or," she softly bit her lip, "kicking your ass, she'll let you know.  Women are good at that, I promise."

"So be cool, is what you're saying."

Dr. Schmitz smiled.  "Be cool."

Liza makes me remember rehab.  I guess everything does at some point.  I was Casper the shitting ghost, haunting the pot, flushing down vomit, shit, bile, and cocaine, and God knows what else down into the sewers.  I feel sorry for the janitors at any rehab clinic. People do anything to get the drugs off of their mind. They tear up the walls, break furniture, rip the paint off the walls with their fingernails, and one dude named Norman would scuff the floors with his shoes until there wasn't an inch of blank space left.

Forget Liza's problems, Angel was worse off.  She'd shove safety pins between the skin of her thumb and forefinger to abate the cravings.  Angel was caught doing that in rehab, and her room was cleaned out.  I think that was when she decided rehab wasn't for her.  She wasn't ready to quit.  She just couldn't do it.

I think both of us had the same reaction after our father’s inheritance that the average Joe Blow does who makes thirty, forty grand a year and then suddenly they win the lottery.  They don't know what to do with the fortune that's fallen into their laps.  They quit their jobs.  Pay their debts.  And then what?  They have no plan.  Nothing to waste the hours away, so they start drinking, getting depressed, sinking into that deepening hole, and they end up worse off than they were without the money, and that's where Sis and I ended up, worse off than before Dad died and we had nothing else left to do but blow our fortune on self-destruction.

There was a TV special about how we dismantled the Richards estate, and I even remember the TV spot.  Some Australian home interior guru and tabloid personality saying, "Room by room, we'll recreate the destruction, and play-by-play, we'll have real witnesses give their true accounts to the rise and fall of the Gene Richards estate."

Brock's wrist ached, so he concluded the writing session.  He wasn’t used to committing anything to paper except signatures on checks.  Brock left his apartment and walked down the block and ate a hot dog from a street vendor.  After eating, he sat under a tree overlooking the Beverly Hills Open Air Park, feeling guilty for eating a piece of greasy meat, but also frustrated he was still afraid to completely open himself up on the page.  Oh well, I guess I have an entire road trip to figure it all out.

It was already mid-afternoon.  He still had to pack his clothing, but at seven o'clock, he had a date with his most favorite blue hairs in the universe.

BAD ROAD TRIP

Present Day

Private investigator Mike Kinsley drove on the back roads of Madison, Virginia, seeking Hampton Hills.  It was a small town along the foothills of the Appalachian Valley.  His trek had turned into an aimless one, being lost, though he swore he had the directions right.  He stayed on the back road surrounded by dense deciduous forest seemingly driving in circles.  Everything looked the same.  There were no breaks in the woods, road signs, or any indication he was going the right way.  After battling to decide if he should check his GPS again, a road sign appeared with the words "Hampton Hills" painted crudely in yellow paint.

No fancy road signs in this place.

Mike sipped his morning coffee in victory, awaiting the jolt he needed to get his day going.  That was the problem all along, he thought.  The coffee wasn't working its magic yet.

Driving along the bumpy terrain, reassured he was finally on the right track, his thoughts drifted to his mission.  He flipped open the top of the file sitting on the passenger seat and viewed the picture of a woman named Peggy Albright.  She was thirty-one.  Single.  Friends said she was visiting Hampton Hills to hook up with an old flame.  She didn't come back.  The bills were stacking up.  Friends and family were concerned.  They called the police.  The police's case was ice cold.  Then Mike had been hired to investigate Peggy's disappearance by her family.

Rumors Mike was hearing involved other people going missing in the general area, though the investigation was slow-in-the-coming because the people missing weren't just from this area.  They were located across the United States in random pockets of the nation without an obvious pattern.  That wasn't his problem.  His problem was Peggy Albright.

"Whoa, something stinks."  Mike pinched his nose.  "Did I run over a dead carcass?"

The tires didn't bump over anything in the road.  He checked the rearview mirror, and the road was clear.

"Seriously, what was that?"

The vents kicked out more fetid air.  So strong, it was visible.  The color was a dark tint of yellow.  The tendrils curled from the trees around the road too, wrapping around their trunks, bending, and twisting, and spreading to obscure the distance.  He turned, and Peggy Albright's file was suddenly blank and dripping with ink.  No, not ink, he thought, but a strange black oil.  It was growing soggy until it started to smolder and smoke the strange color of earthy brown until it vanished into thin air.

Mike reached out to his police frequency radio when the receiver itself softened, the plastic melting into his hand, threading through his fingers, latching on, and burning through his skin.  He slammed the gas, trying to escape whatever was surrounding him.  He was speeding ahead and gaining distance until the terrain turned rough.  The tires popped, and once the car swerved, skidded, spun out, and then stopped, the dirt had changed into a lake of tar black oil stinking of death.  Human bones floated on the surface belonging to hundreds of bodies.  Absorbing the macabre scene, Mike's car was sinking fast.  Steam obscured the windshield.  Everything was so hot so fast, the glass burst, the pieces slicing him up mercilessly.

Picking glass shards out of his eyes with his free hand, the steaming, boiling, popping oil filled up the car, sloshing in from all the windows.  He was scorched alive, the skin melting from his bones instantaneously.

The last thing Mike processed was the sound of many voices talking or shouting over one another.  As they were speaking, he too became one of the voices among the dead.

NEW PLANS MADE

Carlos Miloh was blowing grass clippings across the parking lot when Brock crossed paths with him.  The super was wearing a white shirt underneath a checkered yellow and black flannel shirt that clung to his sweaty body.  Carlos took a break, turning off the blower, and intercepted Brock before he could make it to the staircase.

“Busy man, eh?  Too busy to enjoy your vacation?"

Brock shrugged his shoulders.  “I’m visiting my sister in Virginia.  I haven’t seen her in two years.”

“I have sisters in Mexico, down the Tijuana way, but they have no green card.  They speak English as good as they can work a chainsaw.  Being a Mexican, you have to be able to work every tool in the shed, or else it's the unemployment line for you."

Carlos had known him for two years, and the man had the uncanny ability to read people.  He surveyed Brock's face and withdrew the truth from him.  “This isn’t a fun visit, I take it."  He pressed his fingers at each end of his lips.  "You're not smiling.”

“I’ll say one thing, and I’ll leave it at that.”

“Sure, señor."

“I don’t think my sister's curbed her drug habit.  She's looking to big brother for help.  I’m ready to do what it takes to save her from herself.  It's a big challenge.  I'm not stepping out of her life ever again.  I want her to be healthy."

“You mean that, don’t you?”  Carlos leaned down to turn on the blower again, but first said, “I’ll keep an eye on your place.  Good luck, friend.  Family is all you got."

Brock's favorite support group didn’t meet for bingo until six-thirty, so that left Brock some time to himself.  He packed light for the trip.  Brock had no timeframe for how long he’d be staying.  He hoped the place Angel was lodging had a washer and dryer he could use if the stay dragged out.

He sipped his iced tea while he stood on his apartment veranda.  Brock thought about Angel.  The letter was a rouse to get him to visit her, bring money, and then she would run off again.  She would probably find another guy who enjoyed her enough between the sheets to put up with her, and then when it got old, he'd kick her the hell to the curb.  Or there could be that one guy out there who dusted her off, gave her a sense of home and normalcy, but then she’d ruin that good thing by stealing one too many twenty dollar bills from the guy’s wallet or hawking the wrong watch or keepsake, and on and on she’d go in the same spiraling cycle of self-ruining.

At least she’s not in prison or dead.  You’re taking her back home with you, and that’s final.  I’ll sleep on the fold-out bed.  I’m not letting her go back to a shitty life, not after everything I’ve seen her go through.

Brock felt determined again.  When he marched back inside the apartment to attempt another written entry in his memoir for an audience of one, his cell phone rang.  He quickly answered.  It was Hannah.

“If it isn’t Mrs. Hollywood herself.  Do you have time to remember your roots?  Did you speed dial on me on accident?  If so, I’ll let you off easy this time and hang up now.”

“Stop it, Brock.  You’re being silly.  Look, I've accomplished all of my contract shit.  Next Thursday, I'm off to New Mexico."

"So I'm going on a trip by myself?”

“I don't understand.  Did "America’s Got Flair" call you up early?”

“No, Angel wrote me a letter.  She says she in a small town in Virginia.  I’m going to see what’s up.  I think she’s either wanting to talk to me about how shit went down between us, or it’s the drugs.”

There was a painfully drawn out silence between them before Hannah filled it in.  “I just hope she’s okay.”  Then after another lengthy moment, “I want you to be careful, Brock.  Don’t get hurt.  I love you.  I don't want to see you get wrapped up in her problems.  You can only do so much, no matter how responsible you feel about her situation."

Brock imagined the variety of things that could happen.  Angel slitting his throat and stealing his car and wallet and meeting up with her dealer.  Or he would be sleeping in a room, the door would be kicked open, and then Angel’s significant other would blast him one in the back of the head and take all of his money.  No matter how many scenarios he created, it would end with him somehow mugged, jumped, or killed.

“I hear you on being careful.  But I owe it to her to give her a chance.”  He lowered his voice, knowing she didn't completely approve. “If she’s still on drugs, I’m taking her home with me and forcing her to kick the habit.”

“You can’t force her.  You’re not equipped to cure a person of addiction.  We’re survivors barely scraping by, but Angel, she has to overcame it her way, not yours.”

“I just want my sister back.  The way things used to be.”

“It’s not your fault what happened.”

“I’m the older brother, the more responsible one, and I’m the one who has to step up now and see her healthy."

“If she gets violent or tries to drag you down with her—”

Brock was clutching the phone hard.  His palms were greasy, and he was blinking sweat out of his eyes.  He stopped talking a moment, staring out at the streets, the sun, and the Spanish woman carrying her groceries in one hand and her infant in the other.

Hannah grew impatient.  “I know men, and I know when they clam up, they’re pissed.”

He lied, though in lying, he'd tricked himself into a better mood.  “No, I’m imagining you in your panties wearing your boots ‘n spurs pointing your six shooters at me.”

“You’re full of crap.”

“I’m nervous about the trip.  That's all, honey.”

"When are you going?"

"Tomorrow morning.  It'll be a quick road trip."

Hannah hummed under her breath.  "How about I go with you?  I have eight days before my flight.  I don't even have to be there when you talk to Angel.  Angel might like talking to me too."

Brock perked at the idea of her coming along. He still had to say this, "I guess I feel guilty.  I felt like you and Angel are both victims of my bullshit."

"My decisions were my own, and Angel needs to understand that too.  We have influences, but we also make choices ourselves."

Brock decided it was a good idea they go together.  "Hey, come by tonight, and we'll plan the trip."

"I do have one question for you, Brock."

"Yeah."

"Can I wear my boots during the trip?"

Maybe nobody can understand this memoir because I don't have a straight stream of consciousness.  Well, here goes another try.

It was about a year into Angel and I taking over Dad's mansion that I remember this.  We’d long since quit our jobs.  Angel’s job before she signed off was casting for films and being a part-time film agent, and me, I produced movies.  Without that work to keep us busy, we got bored.  You couldn’t throw a party every day, so we had down time.  Sometimes we’d spend that time repairing the walls, the floors, the ceilings, replacing shattered windows, mowing the lawn—and that lawn was huge—or wading in the pool and relaxing, but in the process of cleaning up, we discovered a secret room in the mansion.  I thought secret rooms were for crazy rich mad scientists, but my father had a room incorporated into the wall of his bedroom.  I discovered it when one of our party guests was found with his head shoved through the wall.  I never found out why his head was shoved through it, but it happened nonetheless.

The secret room was full of high-powered rifles.  Dad was an aspiring hunter, though he was the type to buy things without enjoying the hobby.  The act of collecting was the thrill.  Now we’re talking 30—06's, .22 calibers, .223 Winchesters, Remington 700s, a ridiculous elephant gun, and one of those rifles you crack the double-barrels, I can’t remember the style.  Going through the guns, Angel and I just start blasting everything to shit in the house.  While we were doing this, Angel shoots through walls and enters rooms through these holes instead of using the actual doors.  “This table’s broken,” she said one time with that evil smile of hers and shot the table's legs off.  She’d send the refrigerator off the ground with one blast with the double-barreled shotgun.  Angel would say, “Welp, the fridge is on the fritz again.”  When she shot the front off a running dish water, it was a water works show.

Don’t get me wrong, I had a good time too.  I was firing at the ceiling, and I laughed so hard when the plaster rained down on me, and Angel said I was the ghost of Christmas past.   I used a 12 gauge to explode Mom’s old water bed.  Then I’d start stacking up the romance paperbacks Mom left behind when she moved out.  The collection was in the hundreds. We'd place the novels on random furniture and shoot them to pulpy pieces.  Angel would ceremoniously read from the paperback tomes after she’d changed into a bed sheet, tying it into a toga.  She’d read a paragraph out loud, the paragraph being a colorful description of a woman’s sexual organs.  She’d prop the novel against something and let me take aim.  “Oh profanity,” she kept saying like a Victorian housewife.  “Oh posh, don’t talk about vaginas in this household.  It’s rubbish.  Pure foppery!”  Then blammo from the shotgun.

I probably forgot to mention we were blitzed out of our minds on cocaine the whole time.  Angel had a thing about what surface she snorted from.  It couldn’t be a mirror, it had to be off of somebody’s skin.  That was her favorite way, off a lover’s back.  And she had many lovers—and I had them too, a new one every night, it seemed.  I’d wake up to a new pile under the sheets who’d collect their shit the next morning and leave as if none of it had happened.

What haunts me the most is when I’d catch Angel being treated badly, and I wouldn't do anything about it.  Back then, I didn’t give a shit about anything except being high.  I had my supply, I knew where to get more, and I had money, connections, and Angel’s habits and the consequences were her own problem.

I caught her once in the bathroom naked.  The mansion was empty after another one of our infamous parties.  She was sprawled out, using the shower curtain as a blanket, but she was naked.  She’d shit herself, and she had a bloody nose.  Who knows what event happened first, the shit or the bloody nose.  The saddest part, I laughed at her.  A grown man looking at his sister and laughing.  I thought it was funny.  A normal person would’ve cleaned her up, checked if she was alive—but not me.  I cooked breakfast for myself like nothing had happened.  I owe Angel a thousand apologies.  I only want her to be safe, happy, and to be somebody in my life.

Brock's wrist was cramping, so he forced himself to take a break.  He was confused about how he was supposed to feel about cataloguing the misgiving of his life.  He lowered into the couch he was resting on and closed his eyes.  He had some time to take a nap before bingo night.

CHARLIE BLACKWELL

Three hours After Piedmont Cemetery Melted

It was said of Charlie Blackwell that he had a few screws loose.  That he had been abused by his father at a young age and turned violent by it in his later adulthood.  That Charlie Blackwell misused prescription medications for his social anxiety.  That Charlie Blackwell didn't care about his son who'd been taken away by child protective services due to questionable circumstances.  That Charlie Blackwell would've strangled his ex-wife if Sheriff Reeds didn't step in and break it up.  But what people couldn't accuse Charlie Blackwell of being today was unarmed.

He sped about town in his jeep unloading rounds from the AK-47 he'd ordered through the mail from a friend of a friend who worked at a pawn shop outside of town.  His current targets were those dozens of people who were rummaging through smashed storefronts in town square.  A mini-van had crashed through the "Load and Go" Laundry mat.  Deputy Hanson lit up the gas tank in his squad car and drove it through the front of the Golden Mercantile Bank of Blue Hills to watch it blow up.  Shannon Wiley was taking a sledgehammer to the ATM in the drive-thru of the same bank.  Cash flew in the air, the breeze carrying bills every which way as hordes of nearby people fought over them.

Charlie picked off dozens of people during the rioting, the entire population of Blue Hills in a widespread panic.  What they weren't counting on was Charlie Blackwell showing up to the party.  He preferred headshots.  It ended their lives quickly.  One shot to the face, and that would be all.  Killing them was the best thing he could do to ensure his own life.

He spun the wheel, turning to head vehicle towards the bank to pick up the cash that was hemorrhaging from the tipped over ATM.  Before he could turn around, a series of bullets struck him across the chest.  Without his seat belt, Charlie's body tumbled from the seat as the Jeep kept driving straight into a tree.  Seconds later, the Polson brothers were standing over Charlie's body.  One shoved their hands into Charlie's pockets to take out his wallet, while the other brother forced open Charlie's mouth by stepping on his balls and used a pair of pinch clamps to rip out his tooth with the gold crown.  By the time Polson brothers were finished robbing him, Charlie had bled to death.

BINGO

"B-10.  B-10.  One last time, B-10."

Brock checked his Bingo card, and he came up short.  Desperate for a victory, Brock whispered to Flo, the woman beside him at the table, to try and break her concentration.  "Were you ever a waitress?"

Flo sharpened her eyes and placed her chip over B-10.  This was the best part of these competitions, in Brock's opinions, when the blue hairs responded to his chiding.  Flo asked him deadpan, "Did you ever suck a dick for crack?"

The comment was an inside joke between them.  The women at the table had supported him post-rehab, and they joked hard at each other over time as their friendships increased.

Brock had to counter Flo's quip.  "Hey lady, you have home field advantage when it comes to dick sucking.  You can take out your teeth.  I still have mine."

The old man at the front table named Ernest spun a metal cage by the handle, and like a lottery, he selected a numbered ping pong ball.  "I-8. I-8.  One last time, I-8."

Brock eyed Flo's card, then Mary-Jo's, and then his own card.  All he needed was an 0-7, and he'd win.  Brock had to keep them distracted.  Maybe they'd forget to put down a chip over a letter.  "If you ask me, Ernest needs a bit of pep.  It's like listening to King Tut in the tomb.  Dust comes out of his mouth when he announces the numbers."

Mary-Beth sipped from her apple juice and scowled at him.  "You're going to have to do better than that, boy.  Your jokes are lame."

Flo laughed, "America sucks balls, and who's the biggest cocksucker?"

Brock turned his head in Abigail's direction at the head of the table, whispering, "It's her.  She sucks the biggest balls."

Ernest announced N-2, and Abigail flipped out, spinning once around in her wheelchair. She put her hand up in the air.  "BINGO! I have a bingo!"

Brock flipped his card upside down.  "Ah, I never win."

"You won four weeks ago, remember?"  Flo jabbed her finger into his arm.  "You got that pug calendar."

"Oh yeah. "Pugs In Wagons.""

Mary-Jo eyed Gloria from across the table.  "Gloria really wanted that pug calendar.  She would've stuffed her old pug if her son hadn't cremated him first.  The kid found the bug belly up on the carpet and he just took the body right to the vet clinic."

Before Gloria could speak any further on subject, Ernest walked off the stage and held up the prize.  What was a plug-in phone in the shape of a banana.  Abigail pretended to talk into it, "Hey everyone, it's my son.  He's calling me for the first time in two years."

The blue hairs laughed, and Brock laughed with them.  He remembered being out-of-work, needing friends, and finding a posted flyer outside the St. Anthony Community Center announcing bingo nights.  It was a forty dollar a year membership fee, but it was well worth it.  These ladies were his mothers and foul-mouthed sailors wrapped up in one package, but most importantly, they were sweet people.  He couldn't get enough of them.

Brock couldn't help but let it slip, "I wonder what she's going to do with that phone later."

Flo snorted, "So that's why she's spinning in her chair."

Ernest dug into the box trying to determine the next prize.

"He's thinking really hard," Brock said aloud so everyone in the room could hear.  "This is going to be good, isn't it, Ernest?  They didn't go to the dollar store for this prize, no they didn't."

Ernest ruffled his bushy feathery white eyebrows at him, saying in an eyeful, 'You're going to set them off.  Don't talk like that.'

He dug deeper, dissuaded to pick what he first had in mind.

"It better not be a scented candle."

Ernest huffed this time, clutching an item and then releasing it again within the box.

Brock had everybody clapping, whistling, cheering, and then chanting, "Pick something good!"  "Pick something good!"  "Pick something good!"

Ernest shook his head in frustration.  After working hard, he located something he was pleased with and raised it up.  It was a box of expensive chocolates.

"Decadent," Brock announced, putting his chips into a pile and slapping down a cleared card.  He whispered to Flo, though he purposefully spoke loud enough for everyone to hear him. "My new lady friend would love those chocolates.  I'd get some then, right ladies?  You've been put to bed with chocolate before.  Admit it.  We all have.  Even me."

Flo, Abigail, Mary-Jo and the rest of the ladies gave him an interested stare, detecting juicy gossip ahead.

Flo was the first to ask as Ernest called out the first letter and number for the next game, "Who is this girl?"

"Hannah.  And she asked me to marry her."

He mentioned Hannah on a regular basis.

"Oh Brock, it's about time.  You've been shacking up with her.  It's about time you stopped milking the cow for free."

The game stopped in that moment, and Ernest called out numbers and letters to no avail.  The women stared at him lovingly.  Flo took his hand, smiling.  "We're proud of you, Brock.  We've been rooting for you the whole time.  We don't care what the tabloids say about you. You've changed for the better.  Marrying Hannah would be another one good move.  She's quite a dish."

"I'm nervous.  I've never been married before."

"Fifty-two years old and not married," Flo whistled.  "How did that happen?"

"It's hard to marry or develop romances when you're producing movies and working 24/7.  And I was born into that environment.  It sounds cheesy, but I didn't know anything beyond fast women."  He listened to his words and cringed.  "That sounded awful."

"It is awful," Abigail said from across the table, "but I've been divorced three times, so what's worse?"

"Two times," said Flo.

"Three times," Mary-Jo chimed in.

"Never," Ernest said, glowering at his wife, Edith, who offered him a conquering smile.  "Not once."

Brock looked at them all and was so grateful for each of them.  He said one last thing before the game re-commenced.  "Let's hope I get to be in "The Ernest Club."  That would be "The Never Been Divorced Club.""

BLUE HILLS MAYHEM

Four Hours After Piedmont Cemetery Melted

Gloria Albright had been postmaster general for ten years.  She was now in the sorting room at the Blue Hills post office tearing open boxes and envelopes that were to be mailed.  Her husband had tried to slit her throat in her sleep earlier this morning, but somehow, Gloria had instinctively defended herself.  Kicking him in the balls, Gloria fled the house and didn't turn back.  She ran for four blocks, dodging the houses on fire in her neighborhood, the random popping of gunshots, the murdered dead bodies strewn about on the ground, and the riots that kept spreading across the town of Blue Hills.

Nowhere was safe, so when she caught sight of the post office, Gloria knew that was the best place to hide.  Before she entered the building, Gloria heard the voices of the dead speak on the air.  The smells of sulfur and death escaped from the earth in a yellowish fog, what were blasts of nasty air shoving up clods of grass and creating potholes in the streets and even cracking the foundations of homes.  The pain between her shoulder blades, the need to survive, her surmounting fear, everything she was experiencing was slowly making sense.

She locked the door to the post office behind her and delved into the pile of unopened mail.  She soon came upon a birthday card.  Gloria pocketed the twenty dollars and tossed the card aside.  Encouraged by the take, she kept on working through the hundreds of packages and envelopes unknowing of the heavily armed people outside who were waiting for her to come out to ambush her.

They were already here.

Those two bitches are dead.

Dr. Steinke clutched a scalpel in one hand and Mrs. Birchum's purse in the other.  The purse was useless.  His two nursing assistants had already pilfered items from each of Blue Hill's Hospice Center's patient rooms.  So there was nothing for him here.  He threw down the worthless purse and moved on, skulking about the hallway again.  He had trouble finding Barbie Belle and Jill Olsen, the two nurses, through the thick walls of yellow air that kept thickening.  He coughed on the smells of death, though here, they were laced with the exaggerated odor of bedpans, baby powder, and loneliness.

Dr. Steinke entered another patient's room.  He growled not in shock, but in anger, when he viewed the patient.  Homer Winchell had his throat and wrists slit.  He lay in a supine position on his bed.  His wallet and bag of personal items was sorted through and left strewn about the floor.

"Damn those bitches!"

Homer's deep baritone voice played on the air as if it were being spoken from eight different mouths. "They're in room 109/kill those bitches/make them suffer/say it's for me/say it's for Homer Winchell you're dead/those bitches/those fucking greedy bitches/they play the game well/how well will you play the game, Dr. Steinke?"

Exiting Homer's room, he entered a great cloud of yellow fog.  He picked up his pace, searching for the nurses.  The voices in the air increased.  They teased, taunted, and encouraged him with every step he advanced up the hallway to room 109.

He refused to die.  Dr. Steinke wouldn't give up the battle for survival.

I'll do anything to live that much longer.  I'll even kill those two bitches.  I want to kill them so much!

Dr. Steinke charged into room 109.  He caught Barbie Belle using a bone saw on Mrs. Allandale's ring finger to claim her wedding ring.  The yellow fog was so thick in this room, he didn't have a chance to catch Jill Olson drag her scalpel across his ceratoid and jugular arteries. As Dr. Steinke gasped for his life on his knees, blood trickling heavily between his threaded fingers, Homer Winchell's voice played on the air.  Homer was laughing at his death.  Then hundreds of voices of the dead erupted, covering up Homer's laugher.  They dead were collectively amused, especially when Dr. Steinke's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he expired.

Jill and Barbie stepped over his corpse and continued on to the next room in search of more valuables.

Those who weren't dead were in hiding, Sheriff Reeds gathered, as he drove cautiously about Blue Hills in his patrol car with his shotgun in one hand and the steering wheel in the other.  Dead bodies were bleeding on the streets or left on their property shot up, stabbed, or beaten to death.  The casualties added up to more than half the population of Blue Hills, but that left a lot of locals alive who'd fight for their lives tooth and nail.  Whatever that meant, Sheriff Reeds would keep patrolling town and hope he too eventually found what he needed to survive another day.  The ache between his shoulder blades when he woke up with this morning had died down to a dull ache, but the pain would return again soon.  When it did return, he'd have to heed his body's demands.  The only consolation Sheriff Reeds could give himself was that he had plenty of shotgun shells left to go around for anyone who crossed his path.

He would do anything to live another day.

BRANDY

The Bingo game ended at eight-thirty on the dot.  After talking to the ladies for fifteen minutes afterwards about "America's Got Flair" and Hannah, Brock was on his way to walking home when Hannah's car pulled up to the curb.  Taken by surprise, he loaded himself in to the passenger seat, and eying his lady, he was impressed by Hannah's red skirt and tight-fitting white button up top.  She drove the car two blocks before he asked, "So what do I owe the honor of being picked up?  How long were you waiting out there?"

"Ten minutes."  Hannah half turned to him, a smile creeping across her lips.  "Those ladies sure love you.  I swear they were about to throw their Depends at you like you were Wayne Newton."

"They were asking me about the TV show, and you."

"You're their grandson."

"I am."

"No wonder you love going so much.  You get showered with attention."

"Who me?  You're just jealous you didn't think of it first."  He realized they were driving back near his apartment, but then she passed the turn off.  "Wait, are we going to your apartment?"

"Yes."

The answer was too simple. It should've been a loaded response, and Brock knew he was in trouble.

"Brandy's going to be there, isn't she?"

Hannah had a way of staring off and pretending she hadn't heard him, and she was utilizing that ability right now.

"So we're seeing your sister.  Did you tell her you asked me to marry you?"

She said softly, "She knows."

"Do you want me to talk to her?"

"Yes and no."

"Yes and no, what does that mean?"

"It means she wants to talk to you, and I'm going to have to let her, because if we're going to be married, Brandy says she needs to set a few things straight for the record."

"For the record."  Brock mulled it over.  He caressed her leg, resting the flat side of his palm against her inner thigh. "I'll do anything for you, Hannah, even take verbal bitch slaps from your sister.  They're deserved."

She shook her head. "They're not deserved."

"We have a troubled past together, so yes, I deserve some berating.  I'm the bad boy who turned your life upside down."

"Well, it's better now.  We're sober.  Brandy needs to realize that and start getting to know you.  You're going to be family."

Brock was suddenly so grateful for her just as he was grateful for his blue hairs at the community center.  He was on the verge of crying, feeling like his life was finally coming full circle in a good way, but he kept his emotions in check, especially when he noticed how Hannah's eyes were teary from a long cry.

"You had an argument with her, and you came right over to pick me up, didn't you?"

"Brandy wants to clear the air right now, so I said I'd bring you to the apartment."

"You stick up for me a lot."

"I do."

He kissed her cheek.  "Okay, I'll jump into the lion's den if it means making things easier," he leaned in and whispered in her ear, "when I marry you."

Her smile was infectious.  "I want you to kiss me, Brock."

He leaned in, kissing while she drove, their lips biting at each others with playful zest.  The nice feelings would end when he had a talk with Brandy.  When they arrived at the parking lot outside of Hannah's apartment building, he stepped out of the car.  Hannah remained seated.

"Aren't you coming in?"

Oh no, she's not coming in.

"I reached an agreement with Brandy.  She decided it was best you two had a one-on-one talk."

He mouthed "one-on-one" and looked on at Hannah as if he'd been captured in the harshest, brightest spotlight in mankind's history.

Brandy's going to let me have it good.

She doesn't want any witnesses to the crime.

'Oh Sis, he up and ran away.  He disappeared.  Who knows where they'll find your future hubby's body?  I guess if they don't find the corpse, you can't marry him.  Oh well, you'll find a better man.  And I'll pick him out for you.  This is a small bump in the road, Brock being murdered.'

Hannah offered him a sullen face.  "I know this is hard. I have a feeling this will win you into her good graces.  Show your good faith by talking to her."

I have to be a man about this.

I don't even know what the hell that means in this situation.

Brock gave in.  "Well, honey, family can either be the warmest, nicest, most comforting thing in one's life, or it can be another four hours with the in-laws at Thanksgiving.  If I want the better option, I have to take this walk."

"Brandy will call me on my cell phone when you guys are done."  She blew him a kiss.  "Good luck, Brock.  I owe you one."

"You did me a favor by asking me to marry you because my stupid ass was too chicken shit and stupid to realize a good thing when I had it.  I owe you a favor.  I'm going to do this.  I'm going to make good with your sister."

Hannah's apartment was on the fourth floor.  There was also something honorable in what he was doing, he kept telling himself.  He traced back to his past romances.  There was no pageantry in those relationships.  He produced films, busted his ass raising money, dealing with the normal pre-production woes, and between projects, he'd hook up with an actress or a fellow producer.  A few easy going dates.  Sex.  And then something better would come along for both parties, and that'd be it.

I'm going to show her who I am.  Brandy will have no choice but to like you.  She'll treat you like a brother.  She might grow to kind of like me, maybe.

His nerves of steel melted once he stood outside the apartment door.  His hand was arched over the door to knock, but he paused.  His wrist had locked.  Stage fright was setting in.  He had seen beyond the gates within the coliseum, and he realized his sword and shield was nothing compared to the lioness who waited inside the apartment ready to devour him for his past sins.

Brock finally knocked on the door and waited for a reply.  The air around him suddenly picked up speed.  It whistled through the nearby trees, warning him to run for his life, duck and cover, don't turn back, that it wasn't too late to save himself.   Hannah would understand if he decided to renege on his decision to have this talk with Brandy.

If you can't do this, what makes you think you can save Angel?

That convinced him to knock again, this time speaking up, "Are you in there, Brandy?  Hannah said you wanted us to have a talk."

He waited a full ten seconds.  It was enough time for the wind to calm and dissipate.  He barely heard through the door, "It's open."

Brock edged open the door.  Once he had one foot inside, he was seized by the wrist and yanked forward into the apartment. The door slammed closed behind him. He landed on his hands and knees, thrown so hard.  He was confused, afraid somebody else was in the apartment besides Brandy.  Before he knew what had happened, he was seeing stars.  A lamp had been smashed over the back of his head.  The porcelain pieces rained down his face and back.  Before he could blink the stars out of his eyes, Brock was lifted back up by the collar of his shirt, hoisted by a strong force.  A left hook later, his jaw clocked, the motion of flesh, an arm, a fist, a pivoting fighter, it all blurred into senseless motion.

Brock was a helpless idiot in the face of the pummeling of a lifetime.  He wasn't prepared for the swift upper cut to the stomach that hurled him up against the wall, his back absorbing the pain, the contents of his stomach threatening to lurch up his esophagus and out of his mouth.  He did his best to beg for mercy when a red Puma shoe attached to a foot struck home between his legs, forcing back down the words.  The spike of nausea creeping up his belly, he melted onto the ground, wincing, wheezing, and moaning softly to bemoan the pain in his balls.  He was closer to vomiting now with the sensation of his balls being crushed repeating in dizzying pangs.  He squeezed his eyes shut and tears crept free.

After five minutes of being spread out on the carpet, the agony of his balls reduced itself to a low broil.  Gaining his sense of sight back, Brock studied the room anticipating a new attack.  He spotted Brandy standing above him.  She wore an ass-kicking outfit, one with much flexibility, namely a pair of sweatpants, sports bra, and her black hair styled into a ponytail.  Her expression was one exempt of apology, of a woman who had taken martial arts classes after being raped and facing off with her previous aggressor.  Her menacing face challenged him to get up, to take her on, to fight back and give her a new reason to kick his ass some more.

Her voice was gravel.  "Get up, you asshole.  Are you going to take it?  You going to take it from me, you fucking washed up asshole?"

Brock leaned his back up against the wall.  He could've charged at her, barreled into her chest, but that wasn't who he was.  He wished no harm upon her despite the fact a warm bullet of blood was crawling down his face.  There was an open gash at his scalp.

Brock was still afraid to say the wrong thing.

"You can't have my sister, you dickhead."  She spat in his direction.  "They say once a junkie, always a junkie.  That won't be my sister because she won't be with you.  You'll stay a junkie, and Hannah will find some rich, kind, big dicked man to live happily ever after with.  She'll forget about you in good time.  Maybe no time at all."

Still furious, nostrils flaring, lips sneering so hard he could see a centimeter line of her teeth, Brandy bent over him, slapping him hard on the face, then yanking back his hair.  "Don't you want a shot at me?  You're not going to fight me?  You a pussy?  You a chicken shit?  Tell me what you are, because you're certainly not a man."

Brock did his best to absorb the pain of her blows.  "I don't want to fight."

He was socked in the gut twice.

"You've apologized a lot in your life, Brock, but do you ever mean it?   Am I supposed to be impressed that you've cleaned up?  Because I'm not.  You have a bad day, and instantly, you're back in rehab or stealing from my sister for drug cash."

Brandy wrenched back his hair again, twisting it back so hard he heard a crunch.  Brandy's face gave a little, hearing the sound, as if she too were pained by the noise.  "You can't have my sister."

"I love Hannah," Brock managed through thin gasps of breath.  He was reeling from the attack, knowing he'd be suffering long after this was over with a nice collection of bruises and aches.  "And you have every right to be mad at me and concerned for your sister.  My only argument," he stopped, fearing another punch when she clenched her fists at her sides, "is that I've been sober two years.  I've got a steady job.  I have a sister I want to save from drug addiction.  I can't be forgiven, but I can correct my mistakes and hope for the best from the people I've affected."

Brandy stepped back from him and turned her head down at him, frowning hard.  He had thrown her for a loop.  She was turning the events over in her head, shocked at herself that she'd shattered a lamp.  There was spots of blood on the carpet and half his face was wet with blood.  The cuts on the vascular parts of the body always bled like crazy, he thought, touching around the wound across his forehead.

She paced back and forth in front of him as he stood in place, observing his assault.  "I'll be honest, Brock, I thought I had you pinned down as an abusive son-of-a-bitch.  I assumed the worst of you in every department."

"I've earned it."

"Every man I've known to take a beating like that, from a man or a woman, especially S.O.B.'s like you, always fight back.  They hit women, no problem.  And you took it.  You just took it."

Brock wiped the blood off his lips when the warm trail crossed over them.  "I love Hannah.  We're going to be family."

It was a dumb response, but considering the circumstances, it was the best he could muster.

Brandy confessed, "I had a plan all worked out. I'd beat the shit out of you.  You'd take a shot at me, and then I'd tell Hannah you hit me, and she'd never forgive you.  You wouldn't marry her, end of story.  But you," as if blaming him, "you didn't do anything. You just let me hit you like a stupid idiot."

She was horrified at the damage she'd inflicted upon Brock.  Her plan had not only failed, she had channeled too much anger into him, leaving him a bloody mess.  Suffering from that realization, Brandy frantically called out to her sister outside.

Brock rested in the back seat of Hannah's car as the sister's went at each other's throats.

"You said you were going to act like a Dad and ask him questions.  Like his life expectations, why he loved me, why he was a better person now, not going Chuck Norris on his ass!  What has gotten into you?"

"Hannah, I don't know what came over me. I-I-I thought I'd give him a punch, and then he'd fight back, and then—"

"Then he'd hit you, and I'd have to turn him away, right?  You realize how manipulative that is?"

"He's no good."

"You think he's no good, but you don't know him like I do."

"I don't have to know him.  I see his ass on TV, I saw what you were like after his parties.  You weren't a sister anymore, and you weren't a person either.  Brock was the one who allowed it.  He fed you those fucking drugs."

"I made the choice.  I kept coming to his parties, but we both went to rehab.  And if you're thinking like that, you're saying the way Brock was, I was too, and I changed, right?  Why can't he change?"

"But it's different."

"It's not different.  I was as bad off as he was in rehab.  I was clawing the walls, shitting and puking from my withdrawals.  You beat the piss out of Brock.  Jesus, Sis, look at him.  He's bloody."

Brock tried to add levity to the conversation.  "She tore me a new one."

They didn't hear him.

"He's all bloody, Brandy, God-damn it, and you're still defending yourself.  Berate him, say he's a big asshole, but think about what you did. You kicked the shit out of him.  Don't you feel stupid he didn't fight back? The fact you wanted him to hit you disturbs me.  Brock's trying harder than you are.  He knows you don't like him, but he still wants you to like him."

Brock spoke up.  "Wait, you two, just hold on.  Brandy, can we start over?  From scratch.  I'll make you a deal.  You write up a contract.  Have a notary sign it.  If I ever relapse, I lose Hannah.  I'll sign it.  I swear to you."

The deal caused them both to go quiet.

"Hannah means that much to me.  No drugs.  Ever.  Two years, I've made it with your sister.  We're the perfect team.  We love each other.  You only know the bad parts of me, Brandy.  Give me a chance.  I'll keep trying no matter how many times you kick my ass."

Brandy mulled it over.  She wasn't impressed with Brock, but his offer stuck true in her mind.  "Okay, Brock, you've got a deal.  You stay sober, or I kick your ass to the curb."

"Can I add one stipulation to the contract?"

Brandy's eyes were coal black.  She waited for his request.

"Please don't kick me in the balls like that again.  They're still lodged in my throat as we speak."

* * *

In the ER room, Hannah winced every time the nurse's aide wiped around Brock's gash, the pink slot of open skin that was half an inch wide.  Hannah had to bite her fist when the doctor administered twelve stitches to close it up.  Brock's shirt was covered in dried blood, what had dried into a dull brown-orange color.  His ribs and stomach swelled with ache. He'd have a collection of ripe bruises.

Dr. Mihn asked him, "How did this happen again?"

"I, uh," Brock trailed off, scrounging for an excuse.  "I fell down the stairs.  Wild party.  The old man needs to calm down."

"Yes, he does," the Asian doctor said, disapproving of his reply.  "Well, you'll be fine.  Let the stitches heal.  In four weeks, come back to get them taken out.  You'll have a mean battle scar."

You said it, Doc.  A battle scar.

Hannah stepped up to Dr. Mihn.  "So he's fine then?"

"Shipshape beyond a few bruises.  The old man is no worse for the wear."

After receiving the treatment, they walked out of the emergency room, and Brandy waited outside with her head in her hands.  He wasn't sure what to expect.  She glanced up at them when they approached her.  She rose to her feet, and Brock sized her up.  He didn't feel anger.  He only wished for an honest chance to win her over.

After a moment of drawn out silence, Brandy walked up to Brock.  He went stiff, but when she pulled him in for a hug, he hugged her back.  She whispered to him, "I'm sorry, Brock.  Hannah's right.  You didn't deserve that."

"But you feel better, though.  Be honest.  Come on.  You liked punching out my lights.  Mopping up the floor with me.  Exchanging fisticuffs."

Brandy laughed without meaning to, and said, "Rearranging your face."

"Throwing me under the bus."

"Cleaning your clock."

"Knuckle sandwich delivery."

Hannah stepped in between them, "Enough."

Brock extended his hand to Brandy.  "Clean slate?"

Brandy conceded.  "As long as you don't press charges, yes, clean slate."

Brock led them out into the parking lot and back to the car.  "All right, let's get home so I can ice down my balls."

After receiving more genuine apologies from Brandy on the way back to their apartment, and Brock accepting each of them, they called it a night.  Hannah explained she had packed a bag for the trip tomorrow, and it was in her trunk, so the sisters had a short talk while Brock sat in the car.  When Hannah returned, they drove to his apartment.  There, Brock showered and then they went straight to bed.  He couldn't sleep, though, tossing and turning, once again concerned about Angel.  He snuck into the living room, turned on the standing lamp, and started jotting in his notebook.

Maybe it'll be as easy as letting Angel punch in my face and all will be forgiven.  No, Angel's different.  It won't be so easy to win her back.  Our whole family situation is messed up.  I wonder what Mom's doing these days?  Does she care about her two children?  She has to know we were cokeheads.  The news broadcast it to the whole world.  I guess she's out of my life either way.  I could look her up, but I guess one battle at a time is enough.  Win back Angel if I can, then I'll see about the black widow.

Seeing blood again brings the memories back.  It's the very reason I went to rehab and dragged Angel kicking and screaming with me.  It was after one of our notorious parties.  One hundred people were there.  Too many strangers at that party, many of them sub-Hollywood people, those on the outskirts of work or completely shut out of work.  All I remember is when they left, and I was blitzed out of my mind.  I'd snorted coke and somebody had given me a strange pill.  I still to this day don't know what it was.

I was walking around our outdoor pool when the party was over.  Vomit, popcorn, empty wine, champagne, and beer bottles floated in the water like party flotsam and jetsam.  I don't know what convinced me there was somebody drowning in the middle of the pool.  I saw a floating skirt or a dress, a piece of clothing, and I swore I caught a face and heard screams choked by swallowed water.  So I throw myself in, and I'm fired up out-of-my mind.  When I land, it's like falling into quicksand.  I fight it, thrashing hard, extending my neck to keep my face above the surface, and I could care less what bile I'm floating through, this woman's screams, she's seeing her dying moment, and I was determined to save her.

The quick sand was thickening, and something was pulling down on my ankles like an undertow, but I was inches from the woman, and when I reach out to lift her from harm, my arm cuts right through her.  Her flesh is liquid, and the force of my grip, it tears her asunder, and it's as if I've fallen into her body, trapped in her ribs, tangled in her arms and legs, and I'm covered in so much blood, as if I was the one who killed her, as if my body was so strong, she was like a wave that crashed and broke against my body.

I'm screaming and crying out, horrified that I'd killed this woman, and now I'm drowning, so terrified, and I'm sinking fast, caught up in what really is a dress somebody tore off and discarded into the water.  And then a hear a splash of water.  Angel has come in after me, but she too is blitzed as hell, and when she grabs hold of me, we both sink faster, both heavy as anchors, and we hit the bottom.  Running low on air, Angel claws at my body imagining me to be God knows what, and she's really scratching up my arms, and real blood spreads across the water, and when I catch the pool light above us, I somehow snap out of it, throwing aside the dress, and I lift up Angel whose practically pulling me back down.  She thinks something above us isn't safe, and I force her up, and when we reach the surface, Angel stares at me like asking me what the fuck just happened.  We both don't know, but we're so scared, we realize we can't keep doing this.

It was so real, I swear my arm just cut through that woman when I tried to grab her.  I had nightmares in rehab about the woman and trying to rescue a dress.  I risked my life and my sister's life over a fucking dress.

Brock stopped writing, shutting off the previous life he had lived.  He returned to bed, careful not to wake Hannah.  He stared up at the ceiling for minutes, his thoughts going on and on about Angel and their life at the mansion, before he drifted to sleep.

DIGGING UP THE YARD

13 Days After Piedmont Cemetery Melted

James Matthews, or "Old Man Matthews" as the neighborhood kids dubbed him before everything changed in Blue Hills for the worse, plunged a shovel into the square of dirt in front of his oak tree that stood the closest to his house.  After two feet of earth was dug up and pushed aside, he reached down and claimed his prize.  What would prolong his life that much longer.

A rusted coffee tin.

James ran into the house and locked the coffee tin into the wall safe in his private study and quickly rushed back outside.   James double checked he had his .38 pistol tucked under his belt loop in case anybody got any funny ideas.  He shot Mrs. Jenson and Mr. Ryerson between the eyes when they broke into his house and turned over the Goddamn place until it was as good as a crime scene after a burglary.

They wanted his money.

Everybody wanted money.

James remembered how life used to be about two weeks ago when the town first became a high alert, take no prisoners, survive or die situation.  He was a retired funeral director, having enjoyed nine years of retirement.  During his career, the neighborhood children created stories about him in corners of the schoolyard between turns in kickball, in various altitudes on the swing sets, or walking home from school.

Old Man Matthews doesn't drink, but he sure loves to huff embalming fluid...

Old Man Matthews likes to keep his bed filled with the corpse of his wife when he digs her up from her grave on the night of their wedding anniversary...

Old Man Matthews roams the cemetery imagining each of the corpses under his feet are naked and on his gurney...

Old Man Matthews doesn't wear his rubber gloves when sticking his finger in places he shouldn't...

Old Man Matthews enjoys the sound of sutures breaking dead corpse skin...

The stories became increasingly sordid the older these children became.   Small town embalmers and funeral directors earned this title without any wrongdoing.  He didn't care.  After everything that had happened in Blue Hills, none of it mattered.  The kiddies were dead.  Their mommies were dead.  Their daddies were dead.  Their friends were dead.  None of them mattered.  Dead.  Dead. Dead.

James combed his backyard and stopped at the set of lawn gnomes by the front hedges.  He penetrated the earth with his shovel, digging behind them, locating the sweet spot, knowing he didn't have a lot of time left out in the open before somebody would happen upon what he was doing.

Reaching deep enough inside the hole, James scooped out the rest of the dirt with his hands and claimed another coffee tin.  Hurrying back into the house, he bolted the front door secure and locked up the tin coffee can inside his wall safe.  Staying in the house, James kept the .38 in his hands, waiting for the man with the golden axe to come a knockin'...

HITTING THE ROAD

Brock and Hannah's goal was to hit the road by eight in the morning, but they were running late.  During their shower together, Hannah took in his collection of nasty bruises.  "I am so sorry my sister did that to you.  I had no idea she was planning that.  She said she only wanted to talk to you."

"It's okay."  Brock signaled for her to cease the apologies.  He toweled off after the alleviating hot shower, watching Hannah stand in the shower wrapping a towel around her hair before drying the rest of herself off.  "I know you didn't have anything to do with it.  The ghost of Bruce Lee entered Brandy, and she released her anger.  That's a victory.  Now she has to give me a shot.  Kicking someone's ass never cleared the air between two people as successfully as last night."

"She used to take Karate, actually.  She's a blue belt."

"What does that mean?  Maybe the colors of your belt indicate the color of bruises your moves will leave on someone's body."

Hannah eyed him lovingly.  "You're a good sport, Brock.  You had every right to bitch slap her for that beating.  I wouldn't have batted an eye."

"You don't mean that.  If I hit your sister, you would've left me.  End of story."

"Maybe.  Maybe not.  But you didn't have to let her beat you up so bad."

"I didn't let her," he said, playfully outraged.  "She was swift."

Hannah hugged him from behind.  "You sure took your beating like a champion."

After eating a simple breakfast of raisin bran, toast, and orange juice, Brock systematically went through every room in the apartment and switched off appliances.  He refilled the automatic feeder on the zebra tetra tank.  "You guys be good while I'm out."  He pointed at the biggest tetra.  "Fred, I want you to keep them busy.  Water aerobics.  Meals at noon and seven o'clock sharp.  And keep trying to get into Nancy's pants.  A tip, Fred, if you want to score, let Nancy's sister beat the shit out of you.  It always works.  Sympathy sex is still sex in my book."

Hannah rolled her eyes.  "You get to milk your beating for," she thought hard, "two or three more days, and that's it."

"Ah, come on, at least until I get my stitches out.  That's fair."

Hannah cleaned out their cereal bowls and silverware in the sink and packed them into the dishwasher.  "We'll see how far you get to take it."

"Fair enough."

Brock sat on his couch and unrolled the map he had purchased and traced the red line, the way they'd go to get to Blue Hills, Virginia.  Hannah shook her head.  "You're behind the times, Brock."  She strapped on her purse and patted it down.  "Haven't you heard of a GPS?"

"Where's the adventure in that?  You have to get lost, or turned around.  That way, you might see something cool on accident."

Hannah folded up his map, grabbed both his hands, and urged him from the couch with a hearty kiss.  "Wouldn't you rather pay attention to me than worry about where to go next?  Maps are a waste of time."

Brock kissed up and down her neck, then nibbled on the edges of ear.  It made her tense, then laugh, then shrill with ticklish delight.  "Brock—oh Brock, stop!  That tickles."

Done playing around, Brock went about re-checking the apartment to make sure everything was locked up and safe.  He carried their bags to the door, Hannah lugging her own, and he locked the door behind him.  It was nine o'clock, later than they had planned to set out, but with a trip like this, there was no hard deadline.  They had made a reservation at the Piedmont Inn, and he asked for his sister's phone number in her room, but they said they couldn't give out that information, but in saying that, he had confirmed that Angel was in fact staying at the inn.

After loading up the Honda Civic, they were ready to set out on their expedition.

After five hours of driving, they were deep into Nevada, riding the main interstate, when Hannah dug out her script for Dust Devils.  "I really want to nail this thing.  It's been so many years since I've worked."  She lowered her eyes on the script, trailing her finger down the page.  "I know what people will think when they see me in a movie again.  'Look at that washed up woman.  The years haven't been kind to her.  Drugs sure do that to them.'"

Brock couldn't listen to the self-berating. "Sure, they might think that, but others will think it's cool a movie star is wanting to be in movies for the sake of acting.  Fuck them, Hannah.  You've done more with your life than most, and you've survived the kind of hardships many would fail in a heartbeat.  You're back baby!  Sheryl Flynn is back fighting the evils in the sand!  You still look fabulous.  Everybody has their critics, but they also have their fans.  They're out there, Hannah.  You'll see.  And I'll be there to cheer you on too."

Hannah shook her script as if knocking off the dust.  "I'll do a solo read-through, and I'll mimic the other voices myself so you can drive, okay?  You just tell me if my performance is too jilted."

"You got it."

Hannah cleared her throat, then spoke in her cowgirl accent, "These bodies have been ravaged from the inside out."

Deepening into Detective Shirley's voice, Brock said, "I want you to stay out of this investigation.  This is none of your concern.  If news of this leaks out to the press, you can forget about the Jelly Fair this year."

Hannah poured on her intensity, "Listen up, Detective, do you want everybody at the Jelly Fair to be Suisse cheese?"  She pointed down at who Brock assumed to be the corpse on the ground.  "His stomach exploded.  Image that a thousand fold, maybe ten thousand fold.  And once they escape the body, they grow, and grow, and grow.  You don't want that, sir.  You don't want that one iota."

"Bah, you're a scientist who wants funding for research.  I never cared for naysayers, or rebel rousers, or roustabouts in my town, and lady, you're one of them.  I want you out of my crime scene.  I want you out of my hair, so get out of my hair!"

Hannah's character wasn't backing down.  "Listen, they hide in sugary food, and many know that this dead carnie at our feet had a thing for cotton candy.  Let me take a sample of the cotton candy.  I'll show you the dust devils' eggs are inside it.  Somebody's planted them there."

"Terrorists at a Jelly Fair, give me a break lady.  Go shove off before I get really mad."

"I'm warning you, you'll have more dead bodies on your hands.  Let me do my research.  Shut the Jelly Fair down.  Reschedule it.  If you love this town, you'll do it."

"Get her out of here, Officer.  She's grinding on my nerves.  Make sure she gets nowhere near the county fair.  What's next, killer snake eggs in the popcorn?  Jesus hiked a football to Moses."

Hannah paused at that line, eying Brock with guilty pleasure.  "See, the script is hilarious. It's so much fun."

"I can't wait to see it in the movies."

"Ah, well, it'll hit a few movie festivals, but otherwise, it's straight to DVD."

"Look on the bright side, that's less time I have to wait to see you in action."

"You'll see me in action soon enough."  Hannah rubbed the inside of his thigh and kissed his neck, whispering the dirty things he liked to hear.

After cooling off, she asked, "How much longer are we driving today?"

Brock checked his watch.  "It's two o'clock.  We can stop for a burger and get as far as we can after that.  Once it gets dark, we'll have to start looking for a hotel with vacancies."

Hannah's stomach growled at the mention of burgers.  "I'm starving."

"All right, so where do we eat?"

Hannah's cravings changed from burgers to breakfast food, so they stopped at a restaurant called "The Waffle King" where a giant waffle replica stood atop the roof.  It was packed with customers, and they had to wait fifteen minutes before being seated.  Brock ordered blueberry waffles, two sausage links, and an orange juice.  Hannah ordered a specialty item called "The King's Sandwich," what was two waffles as the bread of a sandwich with whipped cream, strawberries, blueberries, and bananas stuffed in the middle with chocolate chips.  She ordered a tall glass of chocolate milk on the side.

Sitting in the booth, they ate hungrily.  Afterwards, Brock patted his stomach when he was finished.  "Now that was a meal.  I'm about to nod off.  The old man needs a nap."

"I'll drive," Hannah said, stabbing a blueberry with her fork and dipping it in whipped cream.  "Food perks me up."

Brock read from the menu, "Ted Waffler was dubbed the "The Waffle King" in Belgium by "Ms. Oostende 2000" after winning over the super model and actress with his recipe for pigs in a waffle blanket, a daring sandwich creation of sausage links, maple syrup, and waffles created from Mr. Waffler's super secret batter ingredients that have won him over eight "Waffle of the Year" competitions and a guest spot on David Letterman.  So take it from the king himself, "These waffles are worthy of seconds and thirds, so chow down friends!""

Hannah finished her plate and wiped her mouth clean on the napkin and reapplied her rouge lipstick.  "Well, if "Ms. Oostende 2000" says Ted Waffler's got some damn good waffles, I believe it."

A man came by to drop off their bill, saying cheerily, "She's really a nice lady.  Classy.  She could eat waffles like there was no tomorrow.  She could cram five into her mouth at once."

Brock smiled at the man with the nametag "Charlie."  He didn't mean to be so blunt. "You're not Ted Waffler."

"Oh, but I am."  The man adjusted his comb over.  He'd been busting tables in the background during their entire conversation.  "You're new around here, but you see, many senior citizens come here daily hoping to meet me.  They're nice and all, but I've got a business to run.  They'll want me to make all of their waffles personally.  It's not easy being "The Waffle King."  Imagine if Kenny Rogers made a personal appearance at one of his chicken places.  It'd be Armageddon."

Brock paid the bill and thanked the man for his wonderful waffles, and after visiting the bathroom, they hit the road once again with Hannah at the helm.  After five more hours of driving, they finally stopped at a lodging called "The Big 12 Motel" to sleep for the night.

Brock rested on top of the bed, once again feeling the places where Brandy punched and kicked him.   He took stock of the purple-yellow bruises, counting thirteen total.  The pattern created a wicked looking rash.  Brock was about turn off the lamp, but he was still waiting for Hannah to come out of the bathroom. When she did, she was naked except for two towels tied together in a sash.

He smiled.  "Who are you supposed to be?"

Hannah pouted her lips, giving herself a Swedish accent, though it was Belgian she was shooting for.  "I'm Ms. Oostende 2000.""  She posed as a Miss America pageant contestant, smiling big with her pearly whites showing.  "I could eat your waffles all day, Mr. Waffle King.  When can I start eating?  I'm very hungry."

Brock wasn't sure why he was aroused, but something was stirring down below.  "Mr. Pancake sent his goons to beat the hell out of me.  They don't like the way the waffle has been dominating the breakfast market these days.  I can only do what I was born to do.  I work so hard and nobody appreciates me."

Now she was talking like Marilyn Monroe, every word provocative and dripping with sex.  "Oh, you poor, poor man.  You deserve so much, Mr. Waffle King.  You only do good things.  It's about time somebody rewarded you for being such a nice man to everybody."

"That's why I made you "Ms. Oostende 2000."  You have certain...sensibilities."

Hannah sashayed to the bed, committing four stiff waves of the hand to an invisible crowd. Then Hannah rested beside him, peeling off his boxers.  She began rubbing him down, easing the tension in his body, and kissing his pectorals.  "Tell me where Mr. Pancake's goons hurt you."  Whispering under her breath and licking his nipple, gracing her tongue seductively against the skin, she said, "Oh, tell me where it hurts, King.  I'll kiss it and make it better.  Just tell me where it hurts, King."

Brock pointed south.

JAMES MATTHEWS

Present Day

"Open up, Matthews.  I'm coming in."

"You said I had another day before you'd come back!"

"I say when it's time, and I say it's time now.  So open up, or I axe the door down.  Do you want me to use my axe?"

James Matthews clung onto his .38 pistol knowing it was a useless piece of metal against the man with the golden axe.  The axe man's threats kept filtering through the boarded up windows.  The planks and pieces were crookedly nailed into the walls.  The blunt end of the axe knocked twice on the door.

"It's time, Matthews."

"No."  James mouthed the word above a whisper, turning his head back and forth, thinking if he refused the idea long enough, none of this would be true.  It would all just go away.  "Please, no."

You can't take what I have.

I need it.

I know what it does.

I know more than you know.  I know more than most do.

The man with the golden axe dragged the blade end of the axe against the door, peeling off tracks of paint one thin scraping at a time.  "I'm here to collect, Matthews."

James rose up from his position hiding behind his kitchen wall.  He could run, but the man with the golden axe always found him.  And running from him, it made the axe man angry, and him being angry made the process hurt much more in the end.

"It's either the drill or the axe, Matthews."  Wildly scratching the paint now, the man's voice boiled over into rage.  "What's it gonna be, Matthews?  What's it going to be?  Huh, you old bastard?  The axe or the drill?"

This time, the axe pounded home, striking the door once. The blade split its way to the other side.  The golden edge gleamed, and seeing it made James cry out, "The drill!  Please, please just put the axe down!"

James opened the front door, dropping the .38 pistol, and falling to his knees in apology.  James clasped his hands together and begged the axe man, "Please, please give me the drill!"

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Another day of driving and another hotel stay later, they were in Arkansas and passing through the city of Bentonville.  After traveling with few breaks for so long, they were more than ready to arrive in Blue Hills, Virginia.  To pass the time before they reached their destination, Hannah kept reading from her script and laughing at the bad dialogue.  Brock interrupted her latest read through to ask, "How did you get into acting anyway?  I'm ashamed I didn't really ask you that question before now.  I guess with fanfare, you get tired of answering those kinds of questions."

"Ah, not really."  Hannah batted her eyes.  "I could talk about myself all day."

"So start talking about yourself.  What was your first break into the biz?"

Hannah put down her script and had to think a moment.  "Honestly, I won a cereal box contest.  My mom sent in my picture to the company.  Five weeks later, I'm flown out to L.A., I get this make-over, and I'm sitting a kitchen table in a real Hollywood studio eating Rainbow Flakes cereal, and my only lines were, "Mommy, I love Rainbow Flakes.  After that, I became obsessed with acting.  I think I scared the neighborhood kids with the intensity and conviction I had when playing house.  I was a homemaker, and God-damn it, you were going to enjoy my baked cookies and hospitality."

Brock took the next exit.  "I can see you taking acting seriously.  You'd shove one of your friends' head in an Easy Bake Oven if they crossed you."

Hannah smiled and continued her story.  "After graduating high school, I moved out to L.A., worked my ass off busting tables as a waitress, and after nearly a year, I get my next break.  Tampon Girl #2."  Hannah raised her voice before Brock say a word.  "I was in one of those movies for high school girls to teach them about menstruation.  It was such a dumb scene.  All I did was run into the bathroom during class with the teacher yelling at me that I didn't have a hall pass.  I meet another girl in the bathroom who is also going through her period, and we talk each other through it, and guess what? She has a tampon for me, and after school that day, we become best friends.  We actually meet up at an ice cream shop and eat ice cream cones together."

"Sounds like the plot of a porno."

Brock expected a punch to the arm and received it.

"I'm sure you're the source of a lot of giggling in classrooms," Brock said after the hit, remembering the health class videos he watched back in the day.  "I wish I got to be the kid who had to ask his coach about wet dreams and the pros of masturbation."

"Well, the short film got me a role on a sitcom, and then two years after that, a co-starring role in a romantic comedy that's a rip-off of Mork and Mindy with a spaceman coming down to earth to find romance. It was cancelled before its first season was up.  Then I got into enough movies, I found myself doing more and more westerns, and then I met you."

A guilty pang hit Brock.  Now that he listened to her story from beginning to end, he really had put the kibosh on her career.  He had done the same to Angel too.  Brock was tearing up thinking about it, but he drove on hoping she wouldn't notice.  Instead of words, Hannah leaned her head against him and petted his stomach.  She understood what he was thinking.

They kept driving.

Brock's thoughts drifted to Angel.  He grew apprehensive imagining how his first encounter would go down.

Hannah read into the looks on his face.  "You're not going another mile without telling me what's going in that head of yours, Brock."

"I'm stressed about Angel.  It's like bracing yourself for a punch that has your name on it, and you've done things that merit that punch, so there's no way out of it except to, well, to get punched."

"I think she'll appreciate you coming to visit.  Sure, she's got issues she's going to deal on you, but it'll help you both.  How's that journal been working out?"

Brock had kept the journal tucked under the seat of the car.  He made a few more entries during the trip, one of them damning towards Hannah.  He hated writing it, but it flowed through the pen and onto the page anyway:

Angel isn't the only one I've seen in precarious situations after men have finished with her.  Hannah was also a regular at my parties.  I once caught her passed out on my black leather sofa naked except for the rug she'd pulled up from the floor and wrapped around herself.  Open condom wrappers were strewn in the vicinity, but I can't be for sure they were used on her, but I know somebody had some fun with her.  Her panties were across the room.  I don't judge her because I've woken with up with strange women in my bed before.  I'm so glad what Hannah and I have now is so far removed from that.  I'm taking out the bad memories and replacing them with good ones.  And that's the thing about Angel.  Does she have any good memories, or are they all bad?  If there isn't any good for her now, there's no way she's going to kick the habit.

Brock finally replied to Hannah's question.  "It's going alright.  The journal is a self-confessional, so it's not going anywhere near publication.  I have locked up skeletons in my head, and I have to free them."

"I think it's a great idea.  I used to write a journal as a kid.  It was about stupid stuff.  What I wanted for my next birthday.  I drew pictures of my dad dressed up as a princess because he'd never play dolls with us.  He was a machismo guy.  Maybe I'll start writing in one too.  Would you ever let me read yours?"

"Now what kind of a question is that?  It's deep down and personal.  It's unabridged material."

"You don't trust me?"

"I trust you."

"Then let me read it."

"Why?"

"Because I want to know what you think about the past.  It's about when you had the mansion, right?"

She was backing him into a corner, and Brock had only one true weapon to redirect her from the conversation.  "White cake or chocolate cake for the wedding?"

Hannah smiled.  "Well, that's a loaded question..."

She laid out each specific detail of the wedding, and when she was finished, they were only 22 miles away from Blue Hills, Virginia.

BLUE HILLS, VIRGINIA

Exiting the interstate and riding on a less traveled highway for twenty minutes, Brock and Hannah ended up in a heavily wooded area of bright green maple, chestnut, hickory, and oak trees.  "Welcome to deciduous city," Hannah said under her breath, reading the homemade sign on the road, what was made perhaps by a child, how the letters were painted crooked.  Hannah rolled down her windows.  "Smell that fresh air.  Oh, this is so much better than the city.  When we retire, we have to get out of Beverly Hills."

"Once I pay off my debts, and if my show lasts long enough, I can build up a nest egg.  I'd be up for living in the country in a heartbeat.  But if you're going to be a movie star again, and we're married, your money is my money, ri-ght?  Imagine if I hadn't blown my dad's estate?  I'd be able to take you to so many beautiful places.  We'd retire right now.  I could treat you like a princess."

"I'm not a princess, and I don't want to be a princess.  It's a strange way of looking at it, but if you hadn't lived like you did, I don't think we would be together now.  I didn't really fall in love with you until rehab."

The bridge up ahead came into view.  The sign in front of it said Blue River Bridge.  Keep Under 20 Miles An Hour.  The bridge extended for half a mile, the overhead beams shading them from the bright sun.  Half-way through the journey, they peered down into the raging river.  It was a dark blue torrent that furrowed and flowed.  Before they could exit the bridge, there was a steel bar blocking the way.  There was a control post, a box large enough for somebody to sit in, but nobody was there.  Brock got out of the car for a closer look at the control post.

"Hello, anybody here?"

The door to the post was wide open.  The control panel was on.  Brock noted the metal box with a note on it that asked for a dollar to cross.  He dug into his pocket and came up with the single bill, praying the creases wouldn't prevent him from using it.  The machine accepted the cash, then it whirred for a moment, and finally, the steel bar lifted up.  Flashing red lights hurried him on as the console lit up, counting down from fifteen seconds to cross before the barrier came back down.

Brock rushed back to the car, took the vehicle out of park, and sped through to the end of the bridge.  "Where's the booth guy?  Is he out to lunch or something?"

Hannah didn't care.  She was entranced by the woods. "I'm falling in love with this scenery."

"It's woods.  All woods."

"Yeah, but look at it."

Milkweed and ferns marked the edges of the woods.  Hannah was delighted when she caught a group of five turkeys waddle about in a group.  "I've never seen one for real."

"Nature at its finest.  Turkeys."

The woods were so thick, Brock wondered when any actual people would come into being.  As much as it was awe-inspiring to look through threads of the trees to catch an occasional gray tailed fox skirt ahead or a cottontail rabbit eat the daises spread out everywhere, he was eager to see Angel.

The clearing was a grassy area where the earth dipped into a creek, a tributary feeding into Blue River.  A man stood before the water in ragged clothing, the wardrobe having seen many dirty expeditions.  The man himself seemed to be in his sixties, his distraught face intense from the arc of blood trailing down his features from a bruise next to his eye

"We have to see if that man's okay," Hannah insisted, urging Brock to pull over.  "He looks out of his mind."

"That's what I'm afraid of.  Why don't we go into town and call the police?"

"But he's bleeding, Brock.  You would want help if that was you, right?"

He pulled over, giving in, and stepped out of the car.  "Okay, but you stay here.  That's the deal.  If something happens, you drive into town.  No arguments."

"Why are you talking like that?"

"I guess I'm scared wondering why the guy is bleeding.  What if what did that to him is still in the area?"

He told her to lock the doors, then Brock walked towards the stranger.  The man didn't notice him approach.  He was standing erect and eying the creek and beyond it.

Brock wasn't sure what to say, so he toned down the urgency in his voice.  "Can I drive you back into town, sir?  You look like you could use some help."

"I'm not going back there!"  The stranger snapped.  "You're another one of them they've suckered into coming here.  They keep drawing them in, but things are changing.  Yes, they're going to get worse.  There's tension in the earth.  They're arguing.  Fighting with each other.  Battling to be the next to decide things."  The man wept, "They're going to kill us all eventually."

Brock was puzzled by the cryptic words.  He caught a better view of the wound that had bled to the point the man had to close his eye, the red was so thick. Someone bashed him a good one over the head.  Maybe somebody robbed him and left him without a car.

Knowing that had to be it, Brock wanted to urge the stranger back into town, have him sit in the back seat, and they would take him to the hospital.  "Why don't you come with us?  I'll gladly give you a ride.  You're most welcome to come with us."

"Aren't you listening?"  The man snarled, sending a face full of hatred Brock's way.  "I said I'm not going back.  I won't play their games anymore.  I don't care what happens.  I don't care!  Just stay away from me.  Don't you dare get any closer to me!"

"Tell me what happened to you.  I only want to help."

The man dug into his windbreaker and removed a .32 caliber pistol.  He aimed it at Brock, the man's eyes as cold as the blued barrel.  "I want you to go.  Leave me be!  I'm enjoying my final moments, so go away!"

Brock's body froze.  He knew Hannah was freaking out watching the distressed man pull out a firearm on him.  He became his own life negotiator.  Brock was surprised at how calm and cool his words left his mouth despite the war going on inside his head.  "Okay, whatever you want.  I'll leave.  Just don't shoot me."

"Then get going."  The stranger cocked back the hammer and raised the gun at Brock.  "I can't trust anyone.  Anyone alive, you can't trust."  From anger to an honest warning, "You watch yourself.  We're nothing against them.  They have plans for us."  He laughed with a sickening wheeze.  "It's already happening.  There's nothing we can do."

Brock held up his hands and nodded in understanding, though the rant made no sense.  "Okay, I'm going.  Don't shoot me.  Please."

Brock was unable to shake the icy cold sensation that something was really wrong.

You know nothing about this man.  You need to back off and call the police.  Let them talk to the loon and figure it out.

After taking a series of careful strides to the car and not taking his eyes off the disturbed man, Brock got back into the car, hit the gas, and sped on as far away from the stranger as the wheels would take him.

"Do what you will to me!"  The old man shouted at the sky, throwing his head back and challenging the suspicious silence deepening around him.  He knew something would intervene against him being so close to Blue Hills' town limits.  "I won't fight you any longer.  I know I can't win."

He kept walking forward, determined to leave this town behind.  The old man was named Ned Barnes.  Ned crossed through threads of the knee-high creak water.  The water was ice cold, but also soothing.  It reminded Ned he was a living, breathing, thinking, though altered, man.

Ned forded the waters and then walked up a short hill on the other side and kept walking closer to the bridge where he could cross out of town to Igneous County.  So close to the bridge, Ned was halted, forced to slow, stop, and then dodge the baseball-sized pockets of turf exploding up from the earth, what was shredding grass and soil and spitting it higher than the old man's head.  The holes expelled putrid and caustic gases.  With each boil and pop, a bellowing and incinerator-intense heat crossed his body, scalding him.  Then syllables, words, and screams shot forth from the holes.  Voices surrounded the old man as the terrain became deadlier with each step.

Losing his gun after nearly tripping, he shouted at the sky, "Go ahead and kill me then!"

More holes burst from the ground, and Ned turned his ankles between two broken footholds.  The quadriceps of his legs were singed by the blasts of scalding air, liquefying his flesh.  Suffering through the horrid pain, he did what little he could to crawl on as more holes threatened to cook him alive.  An unintelligible mantra spread across the air.  Ned was forced to listen as a larger hole caved in below him, allowing more words to break free: "Nothing in escape/lose all your ambition for life/lose hope/lost forever/you will burn/or follow us and obey/play with us/play our game/or burn burn burn burn."

The words cycled over and over, faster and faster, the hundreds of voices distinct and varying in intensity of emotions.  As the heat rose to extreme levels, the grass around Ned burst into flames and spread like wildfire.  The man's facial features dripped into the deepening hole beneath him like threads of hot wax.  It wasn't more than a few seconds before Ned sank into the earth, splashing into the black oil beneath the earth and evaporating.

Hannah wanted to call the police.  When she dialed her phone, she hissed in frustration. "My cell phone's dead.  Damn it."

Brock was calm, knowing they had left the crazy man in their dust.  "Okay, I'll check mine."

"What did he say to you, Brock?  Why did he pull a gun?  Why was he bleeding?  Jesus, tell me something."

"Give me a chance, I will."  Brock didn't mean to snip at her.  He dug into his pocket for his phone.  He tried to turn it on, but the screen was dead.  "I bet we forget to charge them at the hotel."

Hannah checked the side mirror and the rearview mirrors, her eyes as wide as he'd ever seen them, wider than in the movies where she played a damsel in distress.  "So what did he say?  What happened?"

Brock tried to lower the panic level of the situation.  "He said he's not going back, and that's he's leaving town.  He said he was finished with something.  He claims there's something dangerous nearby, but he's probably disoriented.  It looked like somebody hit him on the head.  I've heard stories where parents with Parkinson's or Alzheimer's will just walk out of their house and go off somewhere and vanish.  Maybe that's our guy.  He left his house and got lost.  Or maybe he left his house, fell down, hit his head, and the rest we just saw."

"But what about the gun, Brock?  Did the old man dodder into a gun shop, pick up a firearm, and then go back to being a dumb old man?  He was scared of something.  I saw it in his eyes."

"Hey, you don't have to tell me.  He aimed the gun right at me."

Hannah gripped his arm.  "We stop at the first place and call the police."

"Agreed."

Brock drove fifteen miles over the speed limit to reach the next house or business.  They kept encountering wooded bends.  He kept reminding himself the sign said it was twenty miles until they reached Blue Hills.  Hannah was about to complain about how long they had been driving when the next turn directed them to a paved road, and up that road, the woods cleared.  Soon, they parked at a business called "Conquer the Mountains."  It was a one-story retail store that sold hiking expeditions into the local Appalachian mountains with guided tours and access to rental supplies.  Brock was grateful the front was packed with cars.  That meant people were here.

He parked in the open spot closest to the sign showing a cartoon climber hiking up a steep incline.  They got out of the car.  Brock opened the business door for her.  Inside, shelves of mountain packs, tents, souvenirs, and both cash registers were ransacked.  The place looked to have been robbed.

"Oh my God, what happened here?"  Hannah winced when she found the phone near the register had been smashed into too many pieces to be of use.  "God, the phone."

"It looks like this place suffered a riot."

"You'd be right."  A flustered man in his early thirties approached them from the back room.  His hair was slicked back, shining in the light with a gelled sheen.  The rest of him was dressed as a mountain climber, wearing a blue and yellow windbreaker and pants.  He seemed to be in muscular shape, though his color was sallow in the face and he was despairing in the eyes.  "Somebody knocked over my registers, stole my merchandise, and then they decided to bust up my displays.  You'll have to excuse me, this just happened.  I'm a bit flustered."

"We understand," Brock said, stepping closer to him and shaking the man's hand.  "We just had a man from the road wave a gun at us.  He was an older gentleman."

"That's got to be Ned Barnes."  He accepted Brock's handshake.  "I'm Michael Sands, by the way."

"How did you know who the man was?" Hannah neglected to introduce herself.  "Was he the one who robbed you?"

Michael paced the store, checking the corners, righting up displays, trying to piece them back together so he could restock the mountain packs, clothing, and apparel that was strewn on the floor.  After stressing over his merchandise, he addressed Hannah's questions.

"No, that old fart couldn't unlock a door, never mind rob me.  He's probably drunk.  And did he flash a gun at you?  It's empty.  It's his way of getting tourists and strangers to listen to him.  It's all for attention.  He's thrown in jail every other night.  If his grandson wasn't the sheriff, that asshole would be facing serious jail time.  Small towns, go figure."  He eyed the dinged up metal shelving units with disdain.  "They took baseball bats to my shelves.  Why didn't they just burn it down while they were at it?"

Brock understood the man was distressed, but he couldn't take the chance the old man did have a loaded gun and would harm or scare someone else.  "Listen, do you have a working phone?"

An apology spread on the man's face.  "You probably want to talk to the police.  I'm sorry, why didn't I think of that?  Yes, we have a phone, but let me call him.  I know the sheriff pretty well.  My dad and him are good buddies.  I can clear this up real fast so you folks can be on your way."

"That would be great."  Hannah stepped closer to Brock, holding his arm.  "Thanks for your help, Michael.  And I'm really sorry about your store."

Brock watched him for a moment, and then Michael made to step to the back room when he snapped his fingers as if he just remembered something.  "Hey, I forgot, my only working phone is a pay phone.  During the heist, whoever cleaned me out even took all of my quarters.  It costs fifty cents to make a call.  I hope you have some change."

Hannah dug into her purse and handed him the coins.  The man's face lit up as he accepted the coins.  Michael hurried into the back with quick steps.  After a long moment of silence, Brock turned it over in his head.  "Can't you call the police for free?"

She thought on it.  "Yeah, you can."

"Maybe he forgot.  It looks like he's having a really bad day."

"I would be too if my business was robbed."

"Or if an old man aimed an empty gun at me."

"No kidding."

Brock remembered staring at the GPS screen before spotting the old man.  They were less than ten miles from The Piedmont Inn.  At least he would have a story to tell Angel to break the ice, he thought, instead of jumping right into drug addiction and how terrible of a brother he'd been.

Thinking aloud, "I'm still nervous about Angel."

"I bet you are.  Once we get this out of the way, we'll drive out to her.  Do you have the phone number of the place she's staying?"

"When what's his face comes back, we'll ask him if we can make another call.  I wonder why Angel's here in this town.  Maybe an old friend lives here, but I hope, I hope, she isn't shacked up with some drug dealer on the run.  Why else would she be so far away and in the middle of nowhere?"

"You can't say, so don't.  We don't know anything yet."

That's when they heard a sharp clap and then the turn of a lock.  The place was silent, suddenly no cheesy store music.

"What was that?"  Brock took quick strides to the back area.  Hannah stayed right behind him, clutching his shirt, as they moved passed the boys and girls restrooms to a set of double doors.  "Hey, Michael?  Are you back there?"

"Brock, he said there was a payphone.  So where the hell is it?"

"Maybe it's in back."

"Nobody keeps a payphone in their stockroom."

"Let's just check out the back room and find out what's going on.  We don't jump to anymore conclusions until then, okay?"

She whispered it, "Deal."

"Michael," Brock called out again, more insistent this time.  "Where are you, buddy?  Mike, you there?  Come on."

Throwing open the doors, the back room was a small access with shelves of back stock and an emergency exit.  No other rooms, Brock deduced.  "It's obvious what happened.  The man took off."

"Why would he do that?"

"Maybe he wasn't the store owner."

"But why would he make up that story about being robbed and then asking for change for the payphone."

Brock's words sharpened.  "I don't know, but we should leave."

He opened the emergency exit door and grabbed Hannah's arm, and they both left the building.  The moment they entered Blue Hills, the events kept getting stranger.

Brock took the lead.  "Stay quiet, I'm going to take a look out front to make sure all's clear."

Hannah forced him back by his coat.  "You're not going without me."

Brock kept his eyes on the edge of the wall.  "I'm just going to stick my head out and take a glance.  That's all.  I promise.  Just stay here.  I'll be two feet from you.  You keep your eyes glued."

Though the store was in a clearing, they were a sprint's distance away from the woods.  It would be a quick way to hide if anything weird happened.

Brock leaned forward, pivoted his body so only part of his head would stick out, and he spied the huddle of people around their car.  Two were men, each of the guys working a coat hanger down into the window.  A woman was watching the road with a double barreled shotgun in her hand and a scowl that would deter any passerby from stopping the obvious crime from happening.  Each of them were dirty and ragged as if they'd been hiding in the woods.  One had popped open the passenger side door, and all three of them began frantically rooting through the glove compartment, under the seats, and another popped open the trunk and checked out the goods.

"What do you see?"  Hannah asked.  "I hear something going on out there."

Brock kept watching them and noticed a fourth woman.  She was approaching the storefront with a large rifle in her hands.

"Shit, this isn't good," Brock whispered, trying to figure out what they should do next.  Their phones didn't work.  Michael had run off and left them behind.  They still had a mile or two before they reached any lodgings or the public.  "I think we should run, and I mean right now."

Hannah was about to speak up, but he clamped his hands over her mouth, stole her arm, and they took off running to the nearest group of trees.  Brock wanted to tell her there was no time to explain, but watching the woman strut up to the building with the gun in her arms and the bad intentions on her face, he knew better than to ignore his better judgment.  After running far enough, they hid behind a group of chestnut trees.  They hunched down on their knees and Brock pointed at the building.

"They're coming.  We needed to run.  They're armed."

Hannah bunched up against Brock as they watched the building.  Moments later, the emergency exit door was kicked open.  The same woman with dark auburn hair with the rifle scoped the terrain with the barrel.  Brock forced Hannah to duck even lower.  "Stay still."

They could hear the four people talking:

"They saw us."

"You think they're gone?"

"Can't see them in my rifle's scope."

"That'll save us a few bullets."

"Did you set the car on fire?"

"The rag's burning.  Give it a few more seconds.  They won't be getting far on foot."

"The woods will swallow them up."

"I'd rather take my chances out there than in the streets."

"So we just let them go?"

"Saves us bullets.  Besides, you got to worry about ol' Chuck and his axe more than anything.  He'll get them before they get us."

"All right, let's go.  Forget them.  We got everything we can take."

"It's not fucking much."

"More than the other times."

"Still not enough."

"Better than nothing, so get over it.  Let's move before Chuck shows up."

It wasn't more than two seconds before the large explosion of an erupting fuel tank called an end to the quiet.  With a massive shattering of glass, the hood was thrown up, spinning in the air like a broken bird's wing.  Falling down, it rattled against the street.  Smoke filled the sky, the proximity reeking of burning gasoline and rubber.

The four cheered as the car burned, and with a slew of excited words, they bounded from the building to find another group of people to exploit.

All Brock could do was wait for them to leave and feel Hannah's body rock with terror.

SEARCH FOR SHELTER

Brock knew they couldn't stay out here for much longer.  It was late afternoon, and the sun would only be up for another two or three hours, and then it would get dark.  Their transportation was destroyed.  Time was short to make a move into town.  He feared running into the four people on the main road.  Frustrated and fearing for Hannah's safety, he made the bold move to stand up from their hiding place.  He tried his cell phone when Hannah dug hers from her purse, and they were both alarmed at the change in each device.  A thin metal covering covered up the digit keys. And in the center of the covering was a thin slot centimeters wide.  Purposeless as far as he could tell.  The biggest concern was how the change could've occurred.  The damn thing had been in his pocket during the whole day.

How did a metal covering get there?

Hannah gripped her phone as her face shrank and turned powder white.  Horrified by the phone, she heaved it into the woods.  "You should do the same, Brock.  Something really isn't right here.  It's more than a feeling.  I don't want that cell phone near me.  It did that on it's own.  How is that possible?  It's, it's insane."

"We can't throw away our only lifeline."

"There's a metal shell over it.  Did you feel it change in your pocket?  Mine was in my purse."

He traced his finger down the cold steel, silver like the chrome covering of a Magnum pistol and as impenetrable as body armor.  He used his fingernail to try and pry it from the plastic covering and ended up chipping his nail.  "No use.  It won't come off.  It's stuck on there good.  And no, I didn't feel it change in my pocket.  It just happened."

"Well that doesn't make any sense.  Throw it away."

"I can't just toss it. Think about it. Besides, I want to show it to somebody else.  They won't believe us unless we can show them."

Before he could react, she seized his wrist, pried the phone loose, and heaved the cell phone into the woods.  "There's something wrong with it, and I don't want it near me, you got that? It scares me!"

Brock turned in the opposite direction of her, checking the bunches of trees and making sure nobody had heard them.  Then he appealed to her before he lost his temper.  "You just threw away our only potential lifeline.  You realize that?"

Hannah's face was burning red and wet with tears.  She let them roll down her cheeks.  Softly, "This place is scaring me.  I say we leave.  We leave right now."

He would've agreed, but now Brock had another worry.  Where was Angel, and how had she been affected by this?  "This could still be a huge misunderstanding."

"Our fucking phones changed by themselves.  It's not a misunderstanding.  It's creepy.  Something's very wrong here."

Brock had to step away from her and collect himself.  He breathed in and out, pretending he had a paper bag against his face. Hannah leaned against a tree, shaking her head, denying what had happened had actually happened.  Then she perked up.  "Hey, I see a house.  Do you see it?"

Through the thick of chestnuts and poplar trees, the terrain shot up a steep incline, like the hump of a foothill.  At the top of it, he caught the outline of a chimney and a yellow house.

"Yeah, I see it.  What do you think?"

"I can't imagine walking on the road into town," Brock said.  "We don't know where those people went.  Besides, it'll get dark soon.  The house is our best option.  And the phone thing is freaking me out too.   I know it's a delayed reaction, but I'm just trying to process this one thing at a time."

She hugged him close, drawing what comfort she could squeeze from his body in that moment.  "Me too, Brock."

Brock kissed the top of her head.  He was forced to give up the idea that this would be a simple retreat to save his sister.

The way to the house took much longer than they first imagined.  Brock guessed the trip was a mile, but the terrain was hidden by treetops, random dips, inclines, and the trail with its many potholes that had threatened to turn both their ankles on numerous occasions.  He expected to run into a group of raccoons, opossums, white-tailed deer, or a coyote, but the area was desolate of life.

On the way to the house, he kept thinking about the changes in their cell phones.  "It's interesting how Michael said there was a pay phone in the place, yet we didn't see one."

"We could've missed it."

"Why didn't he have a cell phone?  Everybody has one these days."

"True."  Hannah shivered against the cool winds.  "That guy was wigged out.  Who knows what he was thinking?"

"And what the hell did he do with your fifty cents?"

"No kidding."  She was grateful for something to laugh at.  "What a cheapskate, huh?"

Brock enjoyed watching her smile.  It was a return to how it was only three hours ago before they entered Blue Hills and all was normal.  They were the missionaries coming to save Angel and to enjoy Virginia's foothills.

He considered how it would sound to an outside group if they told them about their cell phones.  "Until we can find someone to talk to, until the police are involved, I say we remove any talk of cell phones growing metal coverings on them.  We make sure Angel's safe, and then we get the hell out of here.  As beautiful as it is out here, I'm about to jump out of my skin."

"Shitting my pants is more like it."  Hannah took the lead as the terrain once again turned steep.  Their shins ached.  "You had a point earlier.  Maybe we should've kept the cell phones."

"It would've been proof."

Hannah dismissed the idea again.  "Yeah, but I still don't want the damn things near me."

"I'll add this story to my memoir. Wait, oh shit!  I left it in the car.  All that writing up in smoke.  Those sons-of-bitches."

Hannah made no attempt to comfort his loss.  "You shouldn't be worrying about that right now.  You can start over some other time."  Hannah jerked his arm and stole his attention.  "I can see the back porch from here."

Ah, thank God. "It was only a matter of time we'd find it."

Hannah was already ahead of him, determined to exit the woods and enter a cleared area.  Ferns surrounded the house among tulip poplars and mountain laurels.  The back of the house on the second story was designed as a deck to view the scenery, their position facing the dark blue waters of some far-off body of water.

Brock scoured the area for any obvious signs of a presence in the house, and after counting each window without lights or movement, each of the window curtains drawn or the white shutters closed, he decided they should take a closer inspection of the property.

Cupping his hands into a megaphone, he called out, "Is anybody home?  My name is Brock, and this is my fiancé, Hannah.  We need to use your phone.   I'm sorry to barge in on you like this.  We need help."

Hannah scowled at the axe head driven into the bare stump of a chestnut tree.  Nervous by the sight of it, she was drawn to Brock, waiting beside him for a reply from within the house.  After minutes passed in silence, Brock called out again, serving up the same rendition of S.O.S.

Brock turned to her, shrugging his shoulders.  "I say we go to the front door and knock.  Maybe they can't hear us.  Or they're not home.  In that case, I guess we have to hang around and wait for someone to come home.  Either way, I'm using whatever phone's inside."

Walking up the short cobblestone path, they arrived at the front porch.  Brock tried the doorbell.  They could hear the sharp ding echo within the house.  Ringing it one more time after ten seconds of not hearing footsteps or a reaction from the inside, he conferred with Hannah.  "No one's home."

She rubbed her arms, her aqua green sweater unable to block out the cold.  "I don't want to stand out here too long.  I'll freeze.  And we really need to call the police as soon as possible."

Brock was cut off by the strangest noise.  The ground emanated with a bass throb for miles.  Hannah's nails dug into the skin of his arm.  Her words were cold against his ear, "I say we go inside right now."

Still listening to the unusual noise that emanated from the ground, the unique tremors under his feet, Brock couldn't stop trying to understand what he heard.

For a moment, Brock swore it sounded like words.

THE HOUSE

The front door was open a crack.  Hannah urged it all the way open with two fingers, as if using two fingers denounced the notion of trespassing.  Raising her voice, she spoke into the entryway. "Is anybody home?  Please, we need help.  I'm sorry to enter your place like this, I know it's rude...ah God, what is that smell?"

Brock could hear her throat close upon taking in the offal.  He too was knocked back a half-step by the punch of raunchy air.  Brock covered his hand over his mouth to fight the waft.  Something was dead, Brock evaluated, and it stank like the animal blood in packaged raw meat.

Brock insisted, "I want you to stay here and let me check it out."

He couldn't believe what he had just said, though he wouldn't dream of taking it back.  It was all a matter of finding the nearest phone and dialing the police, he reminded himself.  He entered the living room, looking at the loveseat, the recliner, and the large screen TV sandwiched by two shelves of DVD's.  Brock continued to follow his nose, the knot of apprehension in his belly growing heavier as his eyes waved from one end of the room to the other in preparation of any sudden movements or the owner crouching down with a shotgun aimed at him.

He called out once again, "My name is Brock Richards.  I need to use your phone.  I apologize for intruding.  Is anybody here?"

After no responses, Brock decided the owners weren't home.

Then Brock caught the phone hanging against the far wall next to what looked to be the entrance into a kitchen.  Running to it, he also discovered the answer to the other question lingering in his mind.

The source of the smell.

Hannah kept calling him, and Brock didn't answer.  Staked in place by a bout of shock, Brock analyzed and re-analyzed the corpse of the man on the floor.  The body was face-first on the ground.  Palms turned back so the insides were facing up.  No struggle, it seemed; there wasn't a fleck of blood beyond what had soaked into the man's clothing.  Between his shoulder blades, a square hole the size of a shoe box was carved out clean, as if performed by an instrument that could carve perfect right angles into bone.  Someone had just reached in and pulled whatever out in the shape of a box.  The flesh inside the hole was pink and gummed up from puckering in the open air for too long.  The flesh itself was slowly turning shades of blue, purple, and blackening in sections where blood had congealed.  What he had been smelling was vile gases escaping the corpse's body.

Brock's jaw ached from his mouth hanging open so long.  His hands were clutching the counter for grip.  This house was supposed to be a salvation, not a crime scene.  Spotting the phone again, he rushed right to it, clutching onto the handle, his hands slippery with nervous sweat.  He pulled back so hard, he ripped the phone from the wall.  The device crashed to the floor, the receiver and the box breaking into many plastic pieces.

"Oh shit."  Bending down to pick it up, he noted the metal plate over the phone's number keys and the thin slot in the center.  The slot reminded him of the hole you'd see for a coin to be inserted into a pay phone.  He tossed the phone aside, fearing if he touched the altered device, his hands would become contaminated.  "What in the hell is going on here?"

Hannah called out again, more insistent and on the verge of a scream, "Brock, answer me right now! Where are you?"

"I'm right here!"  He shouted back, using up what little gall left in him to speak.  "I'm right here, Hannah."

She detected his location and began stepping into the house with determination.  Ripped from his throat without conceiving the words, he warned her, "Wait in there, Hannah.  Do not come in this room.  I mean it."

"What's happening in there?"

She was panicked, but so was he, and if he was going to maintain any sense of calm in the next few moments, he had to perform his best version of damage control possible.  Stepping into the next room in search of a blanket to cover the corpse with, his blood boiled when he heard her scream again.  Too late.  She had stepped into the room.  Hannah had seen the body.  When he re-entered the room, she threw herself against him and unleashed hysterical tears.

Brock hugged her, shielding her face from the corpse and talking low to soothe her.  "It's okay.  I'll cover it up.  You won't have to see it again.  I'm sorry you had to see the body.  It's okay now.  Everything's going to be fine.  I'm here."

Mumbling nonsense, the words she said next were lost in a soup of tears.  He stroked her head and let her cry while he sized up the rest of the scene for clues.  No blood on the walls.  No obvious murder weapon.  The box carved out of the man's back, it seemed too clean and too perfect.  The wound didn't look real.  A tool or instrument would create jagged edges, but what knife could cut into bone with such smooth precision?

After Hannah calmed some more, he said, "Stay in the living room.  Sit down.  I'm going to cover up the body."

Hannah heard him but didn't respond.  She simply sat down on the recliner with her head in her hands, sobering up from the cry.  Brock wasted no time locating a blanket, but also stealing a moment to himself to figure out their next move.

They had no phone.

There could be another phone in the house that works.  You have to keep looking.

Brock couldn't wrap his mind around the metal covering over the phone's number pads.  What did it mean?  Failing to lock onto any logic to solve the dilemma, Brock moved on to the task at hand.  He moved through the kitchen, then into a side room and located a hallway.  From there, he entered an empty bedroom.  The bed was made and everything looked untouched.  He pulled the wool blanket from the top of the bed and folded it into his arms.  He knew there was another body in the house.  The smell was too strong in the direction he was walking.

Forging on, he kept the blanket in his hands, ready to drape it over another corpse if need be.  Brock knocked on the door.  "Is anybody in there?"

He expected no answer and didn't receive one.  Edging open the door, the pungent scent filtered free.  Brock held his breath, and clenching his body, he turned on the light.  He gasped, throwing the blanket over the naked woman lumped inside the bathtub.  The same shoe box slot was removed from her back.  Beads of gel thick blood had crawled down her backside and across her buttocks, staining the flesh.  The bathtub was otherwise clean, no other traces of blood or what kind of weapon was used.

Brock threw the door closed.  He returned to Hannah, immediately covering the corpse on the floor in the kitchen with a different blanket.  With the task out of the way, he noticed Hannah was staring out the nearest window, her fingers bending two blinds back to peek out.

"Do you see anything out there?"

"It's getting dark.  I can't see anything."

The wheels in Brock's head turned.  "I think we should pick a room in this place and hide out for the night."

"I have a better idea.  I'm sure who owned this house has a car.  We find the keys and drive out of here.  I don't want to be in this town a moment longer than I have to.  This place is scaring me."

"Okay, that makes sense.  Keys first, and if there's a gun in the house, we take that too."  He thought back to the naked woman in the bathroom.  "We can search the place out, but be careful going down the hallway.  I've covered the other body.  It's in the bathroom."

Hannah began searching the kitchen for the keys.  Brock joined the search, going down into the basement.  He discovered most of the basement space was taken up by a large loom used for sewing rugs and blankets.  Through another door, Brock discovered a woodshop with a table saw, drill press, and an entire wall covered by varieties of common tools.

He didn't happen upon any keys, though he located a hunting knife with a five inch blade that was cased in a leather satchel.  He looped it in his belt to feel safer.

Returning up the stairs, Hannah called out, "Hey, I found 'em!"

Brock doubled his stride and met up with her in one of the bedrooms.  She had located the keys on top of a bureau next to a wallet.  He smiled at her and then hugged her.  "Good job.  Let's get the hell out of here."

They marched out the front door together seeking a match for the keys.

NO WAY OUT

Walking down another cobbled path outside, they reached an open garage.  Inside was a Land Rover that was parked among wheel barrows, shovels, bags of mulch, cedar chips, and the necessities to inject new life into a garden.  Hannah moved ahead of him, and when she tried the first key in the vehicle, her face locked up in frustration.

"Fucking thing, it's blocked!"

Brock stared at where the car's keyhole used to be.  A square of steel covered the slot with a slit in the center centimeters wide, the same that covered the cell phone's keys.

Hannah leaned up against the car, channeling her distress by pounding the hood with her fists.  "What do we do now, Brock?  We're stuck in the middle of nowhere without a phone and without a way out of here.  We're screwed."

Brock shook his head.  "No we're not."

"What do you mean?"

Brock moved towards the lawn and picked up a brick from a large pile.  The owners had been in the process of laying down a new path.  Brock heaved it through the driver's side window, the glass shattering instantly upon impact.

Hannah clapped her hands.  "Good thinking!"

"Despite my age, I still have moderate brain function."

Brock reached through the window and unlocked the door.  Opening it, he grabbed the keys from her hands anxiously.  His moment of victory was squelched when the key tinged against steel.  "Goddamn-it!"

Hannah examined the keyhole herself.  "There's just no way."

"I don't know how to jumpstart a car, but if I did, I have a feeling there would be something preventing me from doing so too."

"None of this makes sense."

"I think we should go inside and get a few locked doors between us and the outside."

"But what are we hiding from?  I know there's people out there, but maybe this shit is what's making them carry guns.  There's something else happening, and I want to know what it is."

Brock had other questions.  "Why is Angel here, of all places?  So she sent me a letter, wanting me to get in touch with her.  That was days ago.  Maybe she was calling out for help."

"Then why didn't she outwardly tell us this was happening? Why did she lead us into this dangerous situation?"

"I have to find Angel either way."  Brock was determined to win back his sister, but also to escape Blue Hills with everybody safe.  "When we find her, that's the first thing I'll ask her.  Just what the hell is going on."

"I don't know who can explain the steel panels over the phones and the keyholes.  Angel didn't do any of that.  Angel didn't make that man at the mountain climbing store take our fifty cents and run.  And she certainly didn't have anything to do with the four who burned up our car.  She's in the middle of something weird here, and it's a strange coincidence that while this is going on that she makes contact with you, and then off you go on a whim to see her.  There's something sinister behind what your sister contacting you."

She was scared, he kept telling himself, and she had a right to be bitter and mad at him and his sister.  This was surreal, and he couldn't shake the feeling this was still an imaginary occurrence, a bad dream, and someone would pull back the curtain and tell them this was an elaborate magic trick.

The dead bodies aren't a magic trick.

"I admit Angel's reasons for having me come here are suspicious, but I know for certain it isn't her doing these things.  We know nothing.  We would know more if we were in town, not in these woods."

Hannah turned her head up to the sky, what was dark purple with the sun on the very edge of the horizon ready to kiss the day goodbye.  "I guess we're not going anywhere until tomorrow."

"Right," Brock said, taking her by the arm and leading her back into the house.  "It's not like we have much choice.  The answers aren't here.  We calm down, lock ourselves in tight, and try and sleep."

She scoffed at the idea.  "I won't sleep in ten years."  She turned her nose.  "And I can't stand the smell of those bodies."

Brock pointed at the guest house to the right of the garage.  It was the size of a large shed.  "Then we stay in there."

Hannah sighed.  "I guess we have no choice."

THE GUEST HOUSE

The guest house was used for extra storage.  Another large sewing loom took up a quarter of the space.  After blocking the front and only door with a set of fine oak chairs, they were convinced the barricade was enough protection to flag their attention if anybody tried to break in.  The windows were locked and would have to smashed, and that would surely wake them being in such short vicinity of the noise.

Hannah rushed to the phone hanging on the far wall and was once again disappointed there was no access to the digits thanks to the steel covering.  She trailed her finger along the center slot.  "What's this hole for?  I mean, seriously."

Brock turned his head at the phone.  "I don't know.  And any guess can't be proven right or wrong.  I really don't know."  He walked towards the corner sofa and entered the small alcove for a kitchen and was startled by the sight.  "What in hell is this about?"

Hannah followed him to the kitchen.  She saw it too.  They both approached it like a fallen meteor that could spread cancer if they came too close.  The handle of the refrigerator was bolted down by a strip of steel, making it impossible to open.  And there was the thin slit in the middle of the steel square.  He imagined the slit where one placed a quarter into a vending machine, but it was longer, and wider, and purposeless.

"First the phones, and now the refrigerator."

Hannah rubbed nervously at her eyes, and then ran her hand through her hair, issuing out a long exaggerated breath.  "I can't take anymore of this shit."

Brock agreed.  "Let's just sit and relax.  There isn't anything we can do until sunup."

He urged her towards the couch with a coaxing arm.  Hannah lowered her head into his chest.  Brock rocked her softly, easing each scene from the day from her mental slate.  He catalogued his thoughts during the quiet time, imagining what they'd be doing tomorrow to get out of Blue Hills.

The main roads aren't safe.  Or maybe they are.  It could be just those four people we have to worry about.  Maybe Michael from the store knew they were coming, or he was with the four, and he later joined them.  If the phones aren't working, then I have to locate the actual police station.  And I can't leave without seeing Angel.  I don't even know if she's here.  She didn't say how long she was staying.  It's only been a few days since she contacted you.  Either way, I have to find the Piedmont Inn.  I have a feeling the way things have been going, she's still here. Maybe she knows why things are growing locks on them.

After fifteen minutes, Hannah spoke.  She sounded like she was on the verge of sleep. "It's a strange feeling being in someone's house.  Using their stuff, making ourselves at home, I feel like I'm intruding.  It's interesting."

"Interesting?"

"Yeah, it's interesting."  Brock knew she was speaking for the sake of speaking, to alleviate the tension in her body that was slowly unwinding itself.  "I wonder what it'd be like under different circumstances to crash someone's house.  A better house.  If they had good liquor, or a hot tub, or what about a sauna?  That'd be nice."

A laugh escaped him, alien sounding.  "What if that was our honeymoon?  Breaking into vacated houses and enjoying their amenities, I mean.  You would save money on expenses.  We could hit twelve different houses before the honeymoon was up."

"You wouldn't have to make the bed."

"Or pay for room service."

"I want to use one of those showers that have four different heads spraying you from up top and from the sides.  It'd be lavish."

"Could you imagine finding someone in your apartment doing that?  If it was your sister's place, she'd kick the shit out of them."

"Hah," a snort.  "She beat the shit out of you, didn't she?  I still picture her scissor-kicking and upper-cutting you.  It's funny."

"I'm laughing so hard."  Brock rubbed his belly where the bruises continued to throb.  Thanks to the extreme events of the day, he hadn't thought about his recent pummeling.  "You have a prize fighter for a sister."

"Too bad she's not here to make us feel safer."

"I don't make you feel safer?"

"I mean strength in numbers"  She turned serious.  "I feel so far away from everything being here.  I'm so scared we could end up dead because of something nobody will ever understand."

"That won't happen."  The last thing they needed to talk about was dying.  "Why don't we try and rest?  Close your eyes and relax.  We'll get up early in the morning and start following a main road, and we'll be real careful.  If anybody's coming, we'll hide.  It's that simple."

Brock wasn't sure what Hannah thought about what he said, but she was quiet for the rest of the night.  It wasn't long before they closed their weary eyes and hid into a safe hideaway slumber.

READING OF THE WILL

Willy Hawker was sitting in a Blue Hills historic spot called "The Noleman House."  H. P. Noleman was one of many slave owners who willingly sold off his plantations when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed into law.  H. P. Noleman was famous for his uncharacteristic change of heart from slave owner to emancipation enforcer.  The house was now a place for tourists to visit.  The story was nice and everything, but Willy Hawker kept wondering why the hell he was called out from his home a five hour's drive away to this place to receive his inheritance.  Stranger still, why was he receiving an inheritance from a man who had been dead for the better part of fifteen years?

Willy was sandwiched in the single row of chairs between distant relatives he vaguely recognized.  There was John and Tammy Kippwell (Tammy's maiden name was Hawker), a middle aged set of snobs who were rich from John's corporate law practice and Tammy's modeling career.  They were both slender, well groomed, and sucked-cheeked type of people.  They also looked like they had sweated in a car for too long in each other's company and were ready to get the formality of their presence here out of the way.  His aunt and uncle on his father's side, Wilma and Harris Hawker, were well into their seventies and sat quietly to themselves.  Brandy and Jake Hawker were second cousins to Willy's family, both being farmers in Iowa and owning two dairy farms.  Four other people with Hawker blood sat in the row, but Willy hadn't met them before today.

Nobody talked to one another, though Willy tried to chat with Tammy Kipwell who sucked in her cheeks even harder and gave him two piercing eyes that insisted he need not try any form of conversation with her.  This was about money, not about remembering Tim Hawker, Willy's uncle who had died fifteen years ago in a tragic house fire.

Tim Hawker had died in that fire while saving Willy when he was only seven years old.  Remembering the fire at his uncle's house, Willy's scar tissue along his back and neck seemed to hum.  He had been sent to the emergency room with those minor burns, while his uncle died in the emergency room.  Some said Tim couldn't find his way out of the basement once he got Willy to the upstairs floor.  Others said the staircase collapsed right after he saved Willy, and Tim burned to death in the basement.  Either way, his uncle died a horrible death.  Willy heard many versions of the same story, but they each had the same ending.

Death.

Uncle Hawker was Willy's favorite uncle, as far as his kid mind could remember.  Tim was a country man with country sensibilities, but he had an imagination like no other and hands that could build things to exact his imagination.  The toys and machines that man built and kept in his basement, Tim had chills remembering them.  He loved those toys.

His relatives had no bond with Tim Hawker.  They were here to collect money, and it must've been serious money for John and Tammy Kipwell to attend the reading of the will.

The last friend of Tim Hawker had just entered the room and sat right next to Willy.  He wore a gray suit top, blue jeans, and a checkered red and white button up shirt.  Include the white hair and rough beard, the package said he wasn't a stuck up snob, but a real down to earth person.

"Put 'er there, pal.  The name's Tally.  My friends call me Tally, so you can call me Tally."

"No problem, Tally."  Willy accepted the man's firm one pump shake.  "What brings you here?  Are you a family friend?  I don't believe we've met before now."

"Oh no, we wouldn't have met.  Me and Timothy go way back.  High school, that far back.  And you, how do you know Timothy?"

"I'm his nephew."

"So you lived around here around the time he passed on?"

You mean around the time he burned in a house and died saving me?  Yeah, I lived around here. The words slipped out of him. "He saved me from his house when it was burning down, yes."

"That whole business was a sour lot.  But I'm glad you survived, kiddo. You must be the Willy Tim always talked about when we got together every now and again.  We both like to work with our hands, your uncle and I.  I was a carpenter most of my life, and he was an engineer, but his mind was a creative one.  Tim used both sides of his brain.  Real smart and crafty, that guy.  The best friend I ever had.  I still miss him."

Willy didn't feel like reminiscing about the man who died saving his life, and Tally sensed it, and even apologized.  "I'm a perfect stranger, kid, and I'm going on about things like we're pals.  Forgive me.  I'll skip the sentimental stuff.  I'll tell you something you might not have known before today.  It's bullshit what those local boys did to your uncle's house.  I heard they threw flaming jars at his property and lit that place up.  They knew your uncle was gone, but they didn't know you were in the basement playing with his toys."

Willy didn't want to hear this.  "Hey man, I don't mean to be a jerk or anything—"

"Hear me out, Willy.  Then I'll leave you alone.  You need to hear this."  There was a pressing need in the man's eyes that caused Willy to stop resisting the story.  "This is what this meeting's about.  Reparations.  The county finally opened up the cold case again.  It turns out some people on the city council put those boys up to lighting up that house.  They wanted your uncle's property for a highway project.  It'd bring in new tourists.  A rogue detective got to the bottom of it.  This is why we're finally here.  A pending lawsuit was filed, and we won.  Plus, somebody finally found an existing will.  Listen, I knew your uncle well enough to know that he'd be happy you survived the fire.  You've got nothing to feel sorry about, my friend.  Tim loved you very much."

As if Tally had memorized and said his piece, he stopped talking.  The man was satisfied.  They waited in sluggish silence for another ten minutes before a man in a gray business suit entered the room.  He had a long handlebar white mustache and a face that had seen the gamut of good and bad blood between relatives and could care less about people's feelings.  This was a job and nothing more.  The executor of the will introduced himself as Neil Hunter.  Neil read off of a piece of paper he had pulled out of a thick manila envelope whose seal had been broken at the top.

"To the order of the family, friends, and relatives of Tim Ryan Hawker, I hereby bequeath..."

Willy heard counts of money, trusts, and stock in companies he had never heard of nor cared to know.  He didn't really listen until his name was called.  When the executor licked his lips and reshaped his mouth to speak with public forum eloquence, it made the entire room go still.  Everybody's head was aimed straight at Neil Hunter and the words he was about to unleash.  The burning eyes in the room seemed to break the man's confidence.  The executor paused, started to read, stumbled on his words, and then sat down the papers he was reading from and motioned with his pointer finger for Willy to join him at the front of the room.

Willy was confused.  He hesitantly walked up to the executor.  Neil whispered to Willy, "It says I should tell you this in private.  Shall we take a walk?  These folks will understand.  When it comes to money, they learn patience."

Willy wanted to say "these folks" were rich assholes or dumb hicks who didn't care about his uncle, but he simply said that was fine.  He would go outside and take a walk.

They made their way out the front entrance steps and faced a wide open yard of green grass.  They went as far as crossing the other side of the road to a trail in the nearby woods.  Once they were far enough from the historical house, or any vague possibility of earshot, Neil spoke.

"You were Tim's favorite, from what I've read in the notes your uncle made in his will.  This is really special, so before you ask me any questions, just let me finish.  Your uncle had something different in mind for you.  It's not a handout or a pile of money.  Your uncle had more respect for you than that.  You're going to have to have a leap of faith for his wishes to come true.  Things won't be very clear at first.  In his file, he's given me directions for you to follow.  You are to drive out to his house.  He's given me directions to his place.  Follow them precisely, that's very important.  You're done with the reading of the will.  I wouldn't bother sitting in on the rest.  Oh, and let me explain another thing.  Why this will's being read fifteen years after your uncle's death is very complicated.  A lot of red tape, some broken laws, city violations, but it's mostly about red tape you don't want to hear about.  So drive to his house and enjoy the property.  You'll know what to do from there."

He followed Neil back to the historical house's parking lot.  Neil waited for Willy to enter his car before he went back inside to finish the reading of the will inside.  Willy reserved his questions, reading the piece of paper the man had given him with hand-scrawled directions on it.  He got into his car to read them over.

Willy was about to drive out to his uncle's house when he remembered the man's house had burned down fifteen years ago.

FIRE!

Brock woke to the smell of black smoke and the sound of fire eating at the walls.  Both walls opposite them were blanketed in raging flames.  Billowing smoke blinded half the guest house by the time he bolted awake.  Brock shook Hannah awake.  She screamed, horrified at the turn of events.  There was only one thing to do, and Brock jumped on the opportunity before it was too late.  He raced to the barricade at the front door, shouting, "Come on, help me!  We can't stay here!"

Peeling off chairs and shoving aside the table, it was barely a minute later they were sprinting into the open air free of choking smoke and the intensifying heat.  The roof caved in with the loud crash of timbers, the structure sending out a great poof of smoke into the sky after the collapse.  When they stopped to catch their breaths near the street, a rifle was drawn in their direction.  "Don't move."

Brock gasped, then raised up his hands.  Hannah did the same.

One man turned into three others, two of them being women. They were the same individuals from the mountain climbing store yesterday.  One of them was carrying a gas can with a cruel smile chiseled on his face.  The group sized them up for a moment before the same speaker instructed the others, "Pick their pockets."

The woman rummaged through Brock's pants and stole his wallet and Hannah had lost her purse in the car fire.  He watched the woman's eyes light up at the hundred dollars cash in his wallet.  She sorted through the credit cards with bedazzled eyes, her mouth drawn open as if to praise the heavens for such a generous prize.  The other woman shunned Hannah for turning up nothing, even aiming the rifle's muzzle in her direction.  "You're not hiding anything from us, are you, lady?  Cough up every penny."

"My purse was in the car when you set it on fire."

The comment devastated the woman.  Then she turned mean again.  "Then it looks like we got what need.  These two are useless."

The two men were conferring with each other, talking under their breaths, and then they each approached Brock and Hannah.  One of them said, "Start walking down into the woods.  Make a straight line.  And don't try and run.  We have four guns trained on your backs."

The nozzle was jabbed into Brock's back.  "Don't try anything.  Get walking."

Hannah shot Brock a face plagued with horror, and it sent the worst sensation through him.  Panic wasn't enough to describe the creeping dread, the knowing of something horrible could happen and they were helpless against it.  They were taking them into the woods to kill them, Brock believed.  There was no other reason for them to walk on ahead of the group.  Trembling now, it was hard to keep a solid footing on the rocky terrain, though they somehow walked together down into the woods.

Brock waited for the four to say something to indicate their intentions, but they remained silent.  Brock toyed with the idea of running.

You won't get far.  The scopes on those rifles, they could play sniper from any distance and hit you right between the eyes.

Rage brewed in his blood knowing their death was so undeserved and yet it would happen anyway.  I can't die like this, he kept telling himself, Hannah can't die like this.

Lie to them, he conspired.  It's money they want.

Ahead, the woods dipped at a downward incline, and there was a roaring river frothing below them.

This is where they're going to execute us.

Hesitation gripped him, turning his feet into heavy cinder blocks.  His body did everything to deter him from taking those next steps towards the river.  Hannah was weeping.  The four still didn't speak, and that's when Brock knew if he didn't try anything now, he'd be punching in his own death ticket.

"I know where there's more money.  I have a sister who lives here.  I was visiting her.  She's rich as hell.  She used to be in movie production.  She's the kid of Gene Richards.  You ever heard of Gene Richards?"

"He's lying," one of them said.  The words were as sharp as gravel hitting the undercarriage of a car.  "They always make up shit before we shoot them."

Hannah cried harder now.

"Check my driver's license.  I'm Brock Richards.  I'm the son of Gene Richards.  We have more money, but it's not out here."

"He's trying to stall us."

"He is stalling."

"I say we take what we got and move on before he shows up."

"We can't hide from that bastard forever."

"I'll fucking try."

Brock eyed the ground for a stone, a broken tree limb, any weapon that he could possibly use.  Three feet to his left, he discovered a good sized tree limb the size of a baseball bat.  Hannah's face was wet from crying.

"All right, which one dies first?"

The question sparked him into action.  Bending his knees, leaning forward, grasping the tree limb with his hands, Brock swung it hard. The meat of it smacked the woman behind him across the face.  The connection caused her lights to go out, both eyes turning into the back of their sockets.  She faltered backwards.

"Get down, Hannah!"

Brock swung again, his weapon baring down like a sledgehammer upon the man's back who tried to shoot Hannah.  The blow sent him onto all fours, leaving him disoriented.

Two more enemies were left to dispatch, but Brock was confused by what happened next.

One of them shouted, "Shit, he's here!  He's right behind us!  Ruuuuuuuun!"

An object whooshed through the air.  The object was a blur, it spun so fast and from so far away.  Brock still hadn't seen who they were talking about.  All he witnessed was the woman's neck stuck to the tree by an axe.  She bled from both mouth and neck, what spurted out in generous sprays.  Twitching and with both hands down at her sides, a man charged from the woods.  The hulking rage of a man re-claimed the weapon, ripping back the axe and making the woman's body fall down like a rag doll.  The removal nearly took the woman's head clean off.

Brock caught the man's beefy figure, his neck thicker than the width of his head.  His face was a furious collection of hard lines all bent to inspire fear, but the eyes, there was something off about them.  They were missing the human element, they were buried so deeply in the sockets removing all character and lending the stranger a callous, ice cold killer look.

Rifle shots cracked.  Brock ducked, covering himself over Hannah, taking in the sharp smell of burnt cordite, his ears aching from the deafening blasts and the slew of curses and warnings echoing from every direction.  Before Brock could check if it was clear to run, he was lifted off of Hannah by a force too strong to reckon with, and before he could see anything else, he was thrown hard backwards.  His hands slashed at empty air, his legs slipping over wet leaves and rocks.  He plummeted forward, taking a tumble.  The force of the momentum pitched Brock into the icy cold river.

A REAL EYE OPENING EXPERIENCE

Willy Hawker sat in his car disturbed by the idea that his uncle would bequeath him an empty piece of land.  A piece of land that was supposed to be burned down fifteen years ago.  The city had bulldozed the remains of Tim Hawker's property just days after the fire happened.  As Tally hinted to earlier before the reading of the will, the highway project had taken over Tim's property.  So what the hell was he driving to see, a stretch of beaten road?  He was curious enough about it to follow the directions on the piece of paper.  This was proving to be quite interesting.  What would he do with this piece of property?  If it was a highway, was he in charge of its maintenance?  That couldn't be right, Willy thought.  Somebody had made an error.

"That's got to be it," he said to himself, stepping out of the car and heading back towards the historical house.  "I have talk to that guy again.  There's obviously been a mistake.  No other way to explain it.  This is too crazy."

Up the stairs, Willy suddenly didn't want to be here anymore.  He had bequeathed a burden.  In the back of your mind, you were really hoping there was something left from his mechanical collection.

Don't kid yourself.  It all burned.  It's gone forever.

Willy opened the door quietly so as not to disturb the proceedings.  He expected Neil Hunter to be divvying out whatever monies were due to the family.  He didn't expect the room to be silent.  Nobody breathed either, because everybody was sprawled out on the floor.  The chairs were scattered, as if those sitting in them had tried to run from something in a big hurry.  On top of that, everybody who was here earlier was on the ground, and in pieces.  Torsos without their extremities had landed on the ground, their arms, legs, and heads shot out across the room as if their bodies had been cruelly dismembered.  Sticky blood decorated the walls and dripped from the ceiling.  He feared whatever had done this impossible feat of murder was still here.

Willy heard the door out the back way open and close.  Willy shot forward, rushing to the noise, towards the person who had left the building.  The man who stood in the backyard froze where he stood.  He knew he had been spotted and there was no point in running.

That man was Tally.

His uncle's old friend from high school.

Tally had an explanation that wanted to leave his lips, but the man couldn't gather the gall to spill it.  His eyes were bulging in terror.  The confidence in Tally's demeanor and that friendly "I once knew you uncle" bit had vanished.  Tally was a man caught in an unlawful act.   The man's body was poised as if he could take off running towards the cars parked on the back square of gravel, but Tally didn't move.

What Tally said Willy couldn't have been predicted under any circumstance.

"I don't have much longer to live, so why not tell you what I know, right?  I did it for one reason, so I got what I wanted.  Anymore good that could've come out of this situation has dried up."

Willy's body burned with a mix of shock and incredulity.  This guy was clearly crazy, he thought.  Tally had somehow cut up those people.  Willy couldn't trust the man.  Tally's motives for murder were obvious.

"You did it for the money.  You killed them for the inheritance."

Tally didn't hear those words.  "You're here.  Tim got what he wanted.  I've done my part.  I got to see my family one more time.  I got to hold my grandkids one more time.  Tim honored his end of the deal, and I honored mine.  Now it's time for me to die—"

The next sight would repeat in Willy's mind during the many miles he peeled out down the road.  Willy kept shaking his head, taking double breaths and gasping because he forgot the basic function of breathing.  Every one of Tally's extremities, including his head, ejected themselves from his body at a high pressure, the body parts tearing through his suit and spraying so much blood it misted the man's surroundings for many yards.  Willy didn't stick around long enough to see the man's limbs hit the ground.  Willy had already fled to his car.

RUDE AWAKENING

Brock didn't open his eyes right when he returned to consciousness.  Somehow keeping his eyes shut lessened the pain in his skull.  His body was one large muscle that had been bruised and left tender.  He was laying on an uncomfortable bed of jagged edges.  River rocks.  The sound of rolling waters surrounded him.  Brock shivered in the mist that kept spraying him.  He stank of the woods, of untreated water, of wet bark and the rich scent of mud and clay.  Coughing up a mouthful of rancid tasting water and stomach bile, Brock finally opened his eyes.  The sky was a pale gray, shedding light that matched the color of the quartz stones he was splayed on.  He was slow to rise, but once he remembered how he came to be here, he forced himself up quickly, climbing the loose rocks and hiking to the top of the bank.  Arriving there, Brock had a good view of the distant horizon.  The river channeled for miles, and it was impossible to know how far he'd been shot down the current from where he'd fallen in.

Gaining his breath, he shouted with everything he had left in his lungs.  "Han-nah!  Hannah, where are you?"

He ran forward, going the direction against the flow of the channel.   After stumbling over many rocks, he arrived back at the mouth of the woods and kept running. "Hannah!  Han-nah!"

Brock stopped after half a mile, but it wasn't his body that gave up.  Ahead of him, the leaves below the trees were covered in dark crimson spatters in a wide circular pattern.  Nobody was else was here.  He searched for tracks of blood, trying to find a telltale path, and not locating anymore blood, he had no idea where to look for Hannah next.

His shouts carried through the trees and hovered on the wind for miles.  "You better not harm her!  You hear me? I'll kill you myself!  I'll kill you!"

Brock decided to backtrack even farther, heading back to that yellow house.  He was shivering and cold to the bone during the trek.  He'd catch his death if he didn't dry off.  After wandering around for what felt like an hour, he found the house.  Entering the place, he located the bedroom, and shrugging the awful corpse smell, and he dug through the oak drawers and borrowed a man's wool sweater, black jeans, and a pair of running shoes that were half a size too big.

When he slung off his old pants, he heard a jangle.  He reached in and found a quarter and a dime.  He put the change in his pocket out of habit.  Dried and feeling warm again, Brock hit the road on foot.  He ran onto the main road, hoping he'd come upon more houses, buildings, or civilization.

Brock cleared another two miles before he coming upon another person. Seeing something ahead, Brock's pace was belittled to a slow jog.  He was out of breath and his lungs panged with each intake of air.  The thing that kept him going was the hatchback truck with wooden slats on the sides built up to create a barrier over the truck bed.  The truck's engine was running.  He approached the vehicle slowly.  Brock breached the gap between him and easy transportation.  He would demand the driver to take him to the police station.

What he saw in the truck bed caused him to stiffen.  Three corpses were splayed in the trunk.  Each of them were slathered in blood, almost swimming in it, because they were hacked into pieces.  No corpse was left intact.  Two of the severed arms and the shoulder sockets gleamed of metal at their meaty stumps, and beneath the twisted bolts of tissue, were the curls of steel springs.

"My God," he kept muttering to himself.  Brock failed to make sense of it, so he ran to the driver's seat, though he didn't find anybody inside. A large bloody knapsack was strewn on the passenger side, the top bent so he could see what was inside.  It was stocked with coins, credit cards, dollar bills, credit cards, rings (and one of them was Hannah's, a promise ring her sister made her wear vowing to never marry anybody ever again), and random jewelry.

He got Hannah.

But she wasn't in the truck.

Then where is she?

Hearing the jarring snap of a branch crack under a hard footstep, Brock hunkered back down into the woods, kneeling low, holding his breath, and keeping watch.

There he was, he thought, the man with the axe.  The axe head was golden, though the surface was sullied by thick congealing blood.  The burly man was over six feet tall with the stature of a hearty lumber jack.  The man scanned the horizon, the patches of woods, and up the road, turning over every hideaway in the area.  Somebody had gotten away from him, Brock thought.  Was it him, Brock wondered, or was it Hannah, or one of the four robbers?  The way the bodies were mutilated in the truck bed, there was no way telling how many people were in there or who it really was dead.

Brock prayed the man didn't find him.

There must be no police if he can drive around with dead bodies in his truck.  For God's sake, there's blood trickling down the bumper.

The killer marched back to his truck, slinging the axe into the back of the truck, done with killing for now. The beast of a man took the wheel again.  Taking it out of park, he sped away.

Brock stepped out of the cover of the woods after he was certain the man wouldn't catch him in his rearview mirror.  He wasn't sure if he should run after the truck or form a better plan.

I have no plan.  I have no place to go.  Hannah could be in those woods.  She could be wherever that bastard took her.  She could be dead.  I don't know!

The sense of loss began to sink in.  He wouldn't marry Hannah.  What if he found her in pieces?  And what was with the steel springs in that man's arm sockets in the truck bed?  Had he imagined it?

Angel was here somewhere too, he remembered.  Was she already a victim?  He had nothing to go on.  He could be miles from town, and where did that leave him?

Brock kept jogging forward in a determined pace.

Keep moving, and you'll find someone that can help you.

His wish was ill-rewarded.  Up ahead, the truck that had just drove off came back, the tires squealing, the truck bed rocking back and forth, jostled by the vehicle's increasing speed.

He knows I'm here!

Brock broke for the woods, dashing for another place to hide.  Instead of running, he listened and waited.  Nobody was coming.  The man with the axe had overlooked him, or hadn't seen him to begin with.

He spotted a shed that was the size of two full-sized bedrooms with a roof over the top through the trees ahead.  Encouraged by the good hiding place, his feet guided him on.  There could be a phone inside, though the prospect was grim.  He was enticed by the shelter anyway.    That was until he stepped in leaves that weren't solid ground beneath.  Squishing on something semi-solid, he landed on his hands.  Turning his gaze to the ground, he caught the blackened face underneath the pointy ends of wilted leaves.  The eyes were gone, the sockets gulfs of red syrup.  The corpse's mouth was wide in a permanent scream.

"Gawd!"

Brock backed up from the body by scooting on his hands and the balls of his feet.  Horrified, Brock retreated to the shed, throwing the door behind him closed, locking it, and breathing in air that was tainted with stirred-up nastiness that seemed to be stuck to his clothes.  He took stock of the shed.  No guns, no telephone, and nothing useful beyond a pair of binoculars on a table.  The table was made of cheap stock, and judging by the deck of Bicycle game cards and the half-empty bottle of whisky on the table, and the ashtray with the nubs of cigars, he supposed someone played a good game of solitaire while viewing the woods.  Not just the woods, he learned, noticing the thick book called "The Field Guide of Local Birds" propped in the corner on the floor.

He grabbed the binoculars.  "Let's see what the hell I can find out there."

The binoculars turned out to be long range, the kind used for hunting quail or stalking deer.  After guessing what the adjustments did, Brock scanned through miles of woods.

"Gaah!"

He folded over, pressing his back up against the wall underneath the open window he peered out of after catching the man with the axe skulk about the woods.  He had no idea from what locale or distance the man was moving to or from.  The split-second image of the man with a shirt sodden in fresh blood, Brock couldn't help but imagine it was Hannah's blood.

What else could he be looking for?

You, you idiot.

Forced to check out the window again, Brock scanned the woods for the man again and failed to locate him.

If he comes through that door, you jump out of that window and run.

Brock eyed the bottle of "High Rise" brand whiskey, imagining his hand grabbing it and breaking it over the man's head and then throttling the man's neck until he confessed where he'd taken Hannah.  Keeping himself together, Brock listened again.  Hearing nothing, he decided to keep studying the distance.  Looking through the woods, he came upon a residential area.  During his inspection, he kept gasping, choking on words and appall at each landmark and building he registered.

He glimpsed an old man who had blown his brains out.  The corpse was sitting on a rocking chair on the front porch.  An emaciated body was splayed on a rooftop clutching a sign that said HELP ME.  Every other finger clutching the sign was missing.  A priest in full garb was hanging from a nearby tree from a noose, rotting in the color of green marble and black bruises.  Beyond the houses, Brock got a look at a section of town, namely a grocery store, a strip of restaurants, a library, and a school yard.  All of it was covered in the aftermath of a large scale riot.  Not a single window remained unbroken or vehicle left unturned.  He caught four different ATM machines smashed and left in the middle of the road.  A local bank had been shot up by hundreds, if not thousands, of bullet holes.  A Jeep had crashed through the front of that bank, the inside looted and charred.  Trails of blood matched the evidence of violence among the sidewalks.  Hundreds of corpses were laying about rotting and puckering in the sun.  They were violently killed.

What Brock stayed on the longest was the nearby park filled with children sitting on swing sets.  Their hands clenched the chains, righting themselves up.  Their backs were stooped and their heads pointed down in a death pose.  More children were strewn on the bottom of slides in piles, or laying on the ground below the monkey bars, as if sleep had suddenly caught them.  Every corpse was growing fetid in the sun.

Looking beyond the playground, he caught a woman on her porch steps cradling her husband.  Both had slit their wrists, their blood painting the porch and steps.

Just what the hell happened here?

He kept checking the distance for the man with the axe and came up with nothing.

He's gone.

And so is your chance at finding Hannah.

Suddenly he overheard a breath expelled nearby.  It was one of expressed awe.  Brock was leery to follow it, but he was also too desperate and on edge to ignore it.  He exited the shed quietly and stalked deeper into the woods.  It wasn't long before Brock spotted the man staring up at the tree with his arms rigid at his sides.

It escaped Brock's lips, "A-are you okay?"

The man turned around as if rudely disturbed.  Soon, a caught expression spread upon the man's face.  He was the same age as Brock.  He had graying hair on the verge of becoming white.  He wore a black shirt and white khaki pants.  The man's eyes were wild and always wide open as if everything he saw was beyond belief.

The stranger spoke meekly, "You're not going to hurt me, are you?"

The question struck Brock as odd.  "No, of course not.  Hey, can I ask you a question?  Have you seen a woman in her fifties?  Blonde hair.  Skinny.  Her name's Hannah.  We were robbed by these four people earlier.  Man, it was a nightmare."

"I haven't see anyone."  He sensed the man's posture ease up.  "Let me ask you a question. How long have you been here?  In Blue Hills, I mean."

"Since yesterday."

"Oh."  He was confused.  "And you said you were robbed by four people?"

"Yes, and I think this man with an axe attacked them."

"Where is he?"  Nervous, "Is he here?  When did you see him last?"

"Maybe.  I'm not sure.  He's out there somewhere.  I saw him minutes ago."

Brock observed the steel square installed in the tree.  He was suddenly captivated by what the other man had been studying.  It matched the slots over the telephones.  "Do you know what the hell is on that tree?  Who put it there?"

The man shook his head.  "I have no idea.  They just keep appearing on things.  It's as strange to me as it is to you."

"Look, my fiancé is missing.  She was probably taken by that guy with the axe.  Please help me. Anything you know about what's happening, tell me.  I'm not here to play games, or to do anything bad to anyone.  I swear."

The man seemed to grow disinterested in Brock's predicament.  Even cold.  "Whatever I do won't help your fiancé.  The axe man takes them, and he changes them."

"How does he change them?"

"I can't tell you here.  It's not safe here."

"Then where?  Where's safe?  I have to help her."

The man seemed to lose his train of thought.  The man was shaken up, so Brock decided to keep things simple.  "I'm Brock Richards.  What's your name?"

"James Matthews."

"So you're from Blue Hills?"

"I've lived here for the past twenty-five years.  I'm retired.  I used to run the cemetery up the way.  Owned and operated the business.  What does it matter who I am?  Everybody I cared about is gone.  My wife, she's gone too, just like the rest of them, and that's all I'm going to say about it to you."

Brock asked a more involved question.  "Okay, okay fine.  Can anybody help us here?  I still don't get what's happening.  Why aren't the police doing something about this?"

"The police are dead, or they've been changed."

"Changed?"

"I won't explain it out here.  It's not safe."

"Jesus.  Then where are we safe? I have to find Hannah."

"If you do find this lady, she might not be the same."

James was withholding details, and Brock was on the verge of shaking the man, maybe roughing him up.  You scare him off, who else is around to help you?  I've only seen dead bodies so far.  He's it.  Be patient.  Do what he asks.  Find somewhere safe to hide.

He thought back to his sister.  "Where's the Piedmont Inn?"

"We're a mile from the place.  A mile from town too, actually.  It's just up the road."  He pointed west, back towards the main road.

"Why not hide at the inn?  My sister contacted me, saying she was staying there.  I say we go there.  Then you tell me what you know, then I'm looking for Hannah."

James held a grim face.  "Your sister might be the one finding you first."

Emanations from underfoot began as soft whispers that soon gathered depth, rising up into the sky and spreading with enough treble and bass to shake Brock's core.  Thousands of voices spoke together, the collection ranging from sharp screams, cursing, or simple declarations.  Brock's body jerked as if every new word or shriek freshly startled him.

"Watch and face what you must face/its what we've always dreamed/the vision is real/now run/ scream/hide/you'll vanish and nobody will care/vanish like the rest of them will/just wait and see/we've waited forever and now it's time/stay because you must/because you will all die/but first, let's have some fun."

When the strange voices stopped, the words seemed to cling onto Brock's skin like a hot mist.  James was about to flee the area. "We have to get out of here!  Run to the Piedmont Inn.  We'll talk there, but it won't do much good.  We can't fight them.  We can't do anything against them."

Brock was tracking the man who was a streak of speed.  He struggled to match the full-out sprint James was able to kick out.  The man had knowledge of the situation in Blue Hills, and Brock was clueless.  When his lungs shrank and his sides ached from the exertion, Brock kept imagining Hannah and Angel.  He prayed they weren't victims to the man with the axe or the voices that spoke just moments ago.

It wasn't long before they escaped the woods and entered town.  They crossed a small bridge over a creek the length of two cars front to back.  Looking down the edge of the bridge, Brock noticed twenty bodies were sprawled out among the river stones, curled up like defiled fetuses, their heads dashed upon the rocks.  The finer details of the real damage were obscured by the veil of shallow waters.  Did they jump and die that way, or were they bashed to death by someone?

Moving on from the grizzly sight, the main drag of Blue Hills was up ahead.  Brock could only register only one detail at a time.  At the center of the main drag of buildings was a large fountain that kept spewing water.  The fountain was a statue of four horses with colonists riding on their backs.  The beauty of it was ruined by the bodies floating on the surface ripe and bloated, their flesh eel colored.  He could smell them.  Brock was forced to hold back the immediate urge to retch.  Fording on, there was no corner unblemished by death.  A chapel at the point farthest north from him was three stories tall.  What used to be stained glass windows was a shattered square.  Bodies were stacked up on the tall concrete stairs just below the empty window inside.  They suffered broken heads, broken necks, and limbs twisted out of their natural points of flexion.  White flesh turned black and green in the fetid post-mortem color scheme.  Congealed blood stained the steps.  It was all evidence of a mass suicide.

Store fronts were smashed through.  Anything ranging from clothing stores to restaurants were left in chaos after a vicious riot.  There wasn't an inch of ground that wasn't covered in either glass, blood, or corpses.  Beyond the stores, there were houses in the distance, and he imagined each were in the same condition.

James was half a block ahead of him. The man failed to realize Brock had halted to take in the horror and had left him behind.

"Come on!" James shouted back at him, impatiently waving Brock on.  "And watch out, some of these bodies might be playing dead."

"Playing dead?"

James scowled at him.  "Not here.  Somewhere safe."

Brock raced on, moving double the speed through the killing floor of bodies once he spotted the entrance to the Piedmont Inn.  The hotel was a single story building, a simple structure made of black stone built to look like the outside of an old English pub.  Every car in the parking lot had their windows smashed out and every other car was a burnt shell.  He thought back to the four robbers and how they torched Brock's rental car.

James sized up the hotel entrance. A barricade of tables and chairs from within had been undone.  The front metal doors were wide open.  Rain and leaves had blown into the fine red carpeting within the building.  James motioned to let Brock inside, the man saying without affectation, "Welcome to the Piedmont Inn.  After you, sir."

DAMN PHONE

The sight of Tally's body coming undone repeated itself in Willy's mind.  One moment, the man was standing there, and the next, Tally's torso shot out his arms, legs, and head as if launched from an air-pressure cannon.  It couldn't be real.  It wasn't humanely possible.  Willy heard the unlocking of bone, the breaking of flesh, the tearing of muscle tissue, and the single grunt Tally issued before his head shot off between his shoulders.  Willy didn't forget about the relatives inside who were sprawled about the floor as if they'd been butchered.

Willy clutched the wheel of his Oldsmobile and didn't know where he was going.  It didn't matter as long as the road didn't circle back to where he'd come from, he thought.  He eyed the rearview mirror, and nobody was coming after him.  Nobody to come after him, he realized.  Those who were involved in the estate of Tim Hawker were dead.

Why am I not dead?

Why wasn't I on the floor dead like the rest of them?

The executor of the will had asked Willy to walk out of the house for a private talk.  That was when the rest of his relatives must've been attacked.  If that happened, why did the executor go back inside to fall down dead like the others?  Willy remembered seeing the executor's body laying with the rest of them.  It made no logical sense.

Willy had no answers.  One thing for certain was that he had to get into town and reach the police.  The front tires screeched, and he veered off to the shoulder of the road.  It finally occurred to him to call the police on his cell phone.  The boys in uniform could come to him instead.  Why didn't he think of it before?

You just saw somebody go to pieces.  You're freaking out.

Willy dug out his cell phone from his pocket with shaky hands.  When he tried to dial, he realized he couldn't gain access to the digits.  A steel covering in the shape of square blocked it from access.  There was an odd thin slit in the middle of the steel square.  Frustrated and his confusion turning into a growing pile of misfired thoughts, Willy tried to pick the thing off with his fingernail.  He used a screwdriver in his glove box to pry the covering off to no success.  Willy got out of the car and smashed the phone against the curb.  It only served to scratch the steel covering, though the back plastic had cracked and broken into bits.

The cell phone was useless.

"Damn it."

Willy paced the area beside his car.  Then he realized his left hand was bleeding.  He'd scraped his palm and knuckles while slamming the phone against the road.

"All right, all right, calm down.  You'll stop at the first house and use their phone.  A phone that works."

His teeth were chattering and his body was tensed.  He leaned against the hood of the car and collected himself.  You can't drive to someone's house and bang on their door looking like a maniac.  They'll think you killed someone.  Your hand's are all bloody.

Willy returned to his Oldsmobile and drove on, obeying the speed limit.  He kept going north, deeper into Blue Hills.  It wouldn't be long before he located buildings and people, and most of all, phones.

Ten minutes later, Willy was a quarter of a mile from a short wooden bridge positioned over a rolling creek.  He studied the outlines of mountain ranges in the distances, tracing them with his eyes.  He would've kept on driving if it weren't for the woman who was crossing the bridge on foot walking right towards him.

She seemed to recognize him, and Willy seemed to think he remembered her too.   Willy pulled over and got out of the vehicle to meet her.  His excitement was squelched when the woman withdrew a Ruger pistol and aimed it right at him.

THE PIEDMONT INN

Once inside The Piedmont Inn, James began re-piecing the barricade.  James placed a large table against the entrance doors.  The original lock on the double doors was missing, Brock noticed, as if it was unscrewed and completely removed.  Brock joined in on the effort, and together, they tossed chairs, benches, and finally, a fine leather couch onto the heap.  Stopping the effort once James seemed satisfied, the man rushed to the corner bar called "The Blue Note Bistro."  Reaching beneath the counter, he located a baseball bat with the words "Peacemaker" scrawled in magic marker across its stock.

"This is just a prop," James said, "but it's real.  I knew the guy who ran this place.  He tried to shoot me for the ten bucks I had left in my wallet only days ago."

The last sentence threw Brock, but he didn't ask for more details.  He instead thought about Angel.  "My sister said she was staying here, but I don't know in which room."

Brock spotted the front desk and checked the computer.  The screen had been smashed.  Brock located the guestbook and read through the past week and a half.  He wondered if this strange situation had been going on for that long.  If so, why had Angel mailed him a letter to come visit her less than four days ago?  Why wasn't the letter a distress call?  Why weren't the police here?  Blue Hills was a graveyard, the survivors being men with axes, guns, and criminal intentions, that was except for James, who appeared to be another victim who hadn't given up on his life or the hope of seeing the end of the situation.

"Is she in the guest book?"  James asked, clutching the bat and eying the windows.  He kept pivoting in a slow circle to ensure the way was safe.  "Hurry up, I'm getting nervous.  I've lived this long by staying on the move.  It's the only way to survive."

Brock kept scanning the guest book.  He was nervous as hell that he didn't have a weapon or any means to protect himself.  It also made him nervous James had a weapon. Brock couldn't completely trust the stranger.

Brock spotted Angel's name.  She was staying in room 114.

"She's in room 114."

"What if she's not there? Or she's..."

"Or she's what?  You've got a lot to explain.  Yes, you've helped me get to town, but you haven't been that much help other than that.  This whole town is either dead or, or I don't know what.  Why are the phones covered in steel squares?  Can you at least tell me that?"

"I'll tell you everything, I promise.  But first, let's deal with your sister."

Brock followed the man down a hall of rooms: 101, 102, 103, and so on, until they stopped outside room 114. Brock took the initiative to knock first.  James was behind him waving the baseball bat as if to take a Babe Ruth death swing.

"Open it," James whispered to him.  "She won't answer.  You'll see.  Nobody's there."

He held back to urge to snap, How the fuck do you know?

Brock knocked again.  There wasn't a response.  "Angel, it's me, your brother, Brock.  Are you in there?"

"If she is, she's not answering.  She's dead.  Or she's like the rest of them.  They'd slit your throat for a dollar."

As good as it's been finding you, you're acting like a Goddamn prick.  "Why do you say that? And don't tell me it has to wait."

"Do you think I'm fucking around?  I've been here since this shit started.  It's been two weeks of hell.  I have no idea why it's happening or what it is.  Look, I'm in a bad place too.  My wife drowned in burning hot oil that came up from the ground that was full of corpse bones.  Does that make sense to you?  Is that logical to you?  And don't apologize to me, because it doesn't change a thing.  My wife's gone forever.  I'm helping you, and I'm trusting you not to stab me in the back or rob me and leave me for dead like everyone else has tried.  Why I'm trusting you, I don't know."

"Why would I rob you?"

"Because you'd..."  He trailed off, resting his head against the wall and expelling a long, weary breath.  He watched Brock carefully and made a realization.  "You really haven't been here that long, have you?"

"Two days, but most of that was spent in a house hiding."

"You were wise to do that."  James's piercing eyes made Brock shiver.  "You open that door, see if you find your sister, and I'll tell you everything.  But we must be safe when I tell you this.  It's a long explanation.  And you won't like it."

Nervousness and a driving need for the truth compelled Brock to turn the doorknob.  The door opened a crack, then it stopped against a barricade.  "Damn, it's blocked from the other side."

James rammed his shoulder against it to little change, so he motioned for Brock to press his hands up against the door and combine their strength to defeat the barricade.  "Some shelves," James grunted, "and maybe a chair wedged underneath the doorknob.  We'll get through it.  Help me.  Keep pushing."

"Angel, are you in there?"  Brock asked, grunting as he pushed both hands against the door and hoping it would pop open.  "It's your brother.  I'm not going to hurt you.  I'm not those other people."

"She's not buying it if she's in there."  James now spoke through gritted teeth.  "If she shoots at us, I'm getting out of here.  It's been nice meeting someone who doesn't want to rob and kill me and all, but I'm not dying for you.  No offense."

"None taken."  Brock pushed harder, both old men working their arms and shoulders to their full potential until the door began to widen and widen, the sound of bending and creaking wood increasing as their vigor paid dividends.  "We're doing it!  Keep pushing!"

After the sound of a chair leg snapping, they were able to shove through the door.  Brock followed James inside, and then James went about reapplying the barricade.  He pushed the bookshelf they'd shoved back flush against the door.  The man was about to locate another wedge when both of their gazes fell upon Angel.

Brock looked at his sister on the hotel bed.  Angel was downy white.  White as daffodil petals.  Lips blue as ice over a frozen river.  Her body was locked in a side fetal position, and her hands were positioned at her chest.  Angel's black hair was askew and pasted on her forehead.  She looked to be recently dead.

He was afraid to pose the question to himself never mind out loud, but Brock asked it anyway, "If she's dead, why doesn't she...smell?"

James moved to the bed with practiced speed and confidence.  He touched his fingers beneath her neck and spoke clinically, "She's warm and still has a pulse.  She recently went to sleep.  If you stay like that for too long, you begin to rot.  It requires more to bring you back to life in that case.  It happened to my wife days before the oil swallowed her up."

Brock tried his best to sound patient.  "What exactly happened to your wife?"

"It started with the voices you heard earlier carrying in the air.  Then the smell arrived.  Deathly smells, not just rotting, Brock, but varying forms of death.  Open wounds.  Burnt flesh.  Singed hair.  Gangrene infected flesh.  Coffin rot.  Spilled blood.  Blood turned to smoke.  Sulfur.  It was all a form of putrescence that corrupted the air.  I'm familiar with it, because I embalmed bodies for funerals.  I did everything at that cemetery.

"And then anybody who tried to leave town suddenly couldn't leave.  If they tried, the roads, the ground, whatever was below their feet, would open up.  The death smell would come up through the ground as would that infernal black oil.  Have you seen the black oil?"  He wasn't asking Brock, only posing a rhetorical question.  "If you have, you've seen the bones floating in the boiling mess.  The oil is as hot as magma beneath the earth's crust.  If you ran from it, you'd be sucked down, then vaporized.  You'd ultimately vanish.  That insistent chattering would play on the air, those voices over voices over voices.  I swear they're all speaking to different ends.  Some are laughing, others are warning you danger's here, while others are instructing.  God knows what their intentions are.  I don't.  So what do you do when you can't leave town?  You call the police, right?"  He eyed Brock, making sure his listener hadn't dismissed him as mad.  "What happens when the phone doesn't work anymore?"

Brock broke in, "You panic, that's what you do."  He imagined his cell phone and how it had changed without any indication.  "My cell phone was covered in a steel plate, as was the phone in that house we hid in last night.  It was like someone was trying to deny us the privilege."

James nodded.  "Yes, everybody's phones and communication devices were suddenly covered in steel with that thin little slot in the middle.  It literally happened overnight.  One moment everything was normal, and the next, it was fucking crazy."

"Why are things covered in steel like that?  I still don't understand the significance."

James pointed at Angel.  "Do me a favor and touch her."

Offended, "Excuse me."

"Before I explain more, I want you to understand something.  Check for yourself.  She's warm.  She's alive.  Right?"

For the sake of receiving more of the explanation, Brock moved to the bed.  He extended his hand and touched Angel's neck and was startled to feel the warmth.  Her pulse was faint, as if on hibernation mode.

"She's alive, yes.  Now what's your point?"

"I heard a rattling in your pocket.  I pray it's what I'm thinking it is."

Brock dug it out.  He was shocked at how James's face lit up, as if he was an alcoholic and Brock had removed a fifth of bourbon from his pocket instead of the thirty-five cents.  "It's pocket change.  So what?"

Relief played on the man's features.  He pointed at Angel, afraid to come any closer to Brock's quarter and a dime.  An expression of dread played upon his eyes, one of pure loathing.  "Okay, just do as I say."  He was out-of-breath, sweating profusely, and aiming his finger at Angel's arm.  "Just place the coins on her arm."

"What?"

"Place them on her arm.  And make sure they don't fall off."

Brock was dumb to what he was being asked.  "Now why would I need to do that?"

A vein tensed in James's neck.  His face was turning plum red.  James seemed to restrain himself from reaching out and throttling Brock's neck.  Instead, the distraught man shouted, "Fucking place the coins on her arm, or I'll leave you right now to figure it all out for yourself!"

Brock's hands were shaking.  He feared further provocation with James, or being left alone in this awful town, so Brock carefully placed the quarter and dime on Angel's forearm.  He took a step back and looked at the coins that didn't move.  Brock wanted to shout, 'Now what?' but thought against it.  Instead, they stood together watching his sister's body on the bed and the two coins.

"Any moment."  James's words were hushed.  He kept pointing urgently at the coins.  "It happens fast.  I don't want you to miss it, Brock.  Keep your eyes open.  Trust me.  Keep waiting."

Biting his lip, tucking his hands behind his back and leaning towards Angel, Brock strained his eyes and patience waiting for the miraculous to happen.

And it did.

The coins were gone.

They vanished.

Brock replayed what happened in his mind so many times, he couldn't deny it.  The coins were sucked down into the threads of skin that opened up, pulling the coinage down.  The flesh healed back up as if nothing had ever happened.  Like it was natural.

Terrified by the occurrence, James began to speak, coaching Brock so he wouldn't lose his calm. "It's happening to all of us, Brock.  Even me.  Without money, coins, rings, gold, jewelry, anything that has monetary worth, we can't live.  We fall asleep like your poor sister.  And you don't want to fall asleep.  If someone doesn't come along and put money in you, you begin to rot.  You don't get to wake up."

Brock watched his sister.

"Wait for it."

Grabbing James's arm and forcing him up against the wall, he shouted, "Why should I wait?  Maybe I'm under a fucking spell, but there's got to be a logical reasoning as to why my sister's arm just sucked down those coins.  I mean where did they go?"

James didn't retaliate against Brock accosting him.  "Just wait, Brock.  You have to see this before I tell you anything.  I can't convince you it's real until you see it."

Without realizing it, James urged him to once again study Angel.  "I can't explain much more unless you believe what I'm telling you.  I'm sorry it has to be like this.  There's no other way."

Brock was startled by the sound of someone just escaping from underwater and gasping for a much needed breath.  Then there was sobbing.  He rushed to his sister who was suddenly alive, flopping back and forth on the bed as if shrugging a bad nightmare, weeping with her hands digging into the sheets, her eyes inflamed and bloodshot, her mouth bent in crooked disdain.  He believed his sister was having a vicious panic attack until she set eyes on Brock and stopped.

She muttered it like a curse, "What the hell are you doing here, Brock?"

Brock was shocked and spoke with a limp tongue. "I, you sent me a letter.  You wanted me to visit you.  You wanted to talk to me.  You told me you were staying here, so here I am."

Her eyes couldn't shape the scorn that was brewing in her mind.  "I'd never mail you anything in a thousand years!"

Brock backed up from the bed.  "You sent me a letter.  I wanted to help you.  Can't you be happy to see me?  I know our relationship has taken a stab in the back, but I'm here now.  I'm here to make things better.  At least I'm here to try."

She sounded much angrier now.  "I would rather go back to being unconscious than rekindle a relationship with you."

"Did you know I've lost Hannah looking for you?  She was here with me.  We're going to get married, if you care.  But somebody's taken her.  If I didn't come here in the first place, we'd both be safe."

Angel wasn't affected by his speech.  "My boyfriend's dead.  This whole town's a graveyard.  I was actually hoping I was dead.  I was hoping to be dead for good."  Sneering with tears streaming down her face, she folded to her emotions.  On the bed, she whispered in a hurt voice, "Why did you wake me?  I don't want to be awake anymore."

James tried to mend the already terrible conversation.  "You don't have much time, Angel.  He only put thirty-five cents in you."

Angel and Brock waited for James to continue, and he did, happy he had their undivided attention.  "The man with the golden axe, he got to you, didn't he?"

Angel's eyes met James's face.  "Yes.  How did you know?"

"Those who live in Blue Hills, we woke up changed about two weeks ago.  I'm thinking it has something to do with the voices on the air.  Perhaps it's supernatural, because no person could alter hundreds of people so quickly.  Whatever the change did to our bodies, it turns us into machines that require money to live."

Brock recalled the man with the golden axe, and that was the man who had attacked them earlier in the woods.  "The guy with the axe was the one who took Hannah.  Do you know where he is?  Is he making people change too?

"I don't know where he is, but yes, he's been going after people who come into town and altering them like the rest of us have been altered.  He hides.  The man skulks about town, finding people, and he dismantles them.  He also collects the money inside of you.  What he does with the money, where he goes, where he hides, is beyond me.  The situation was terrible, but it became far worse when Chuck Durnham became who he was.  Everybody calls him the man with the golden axe because he uses it to attack everyone.  He can mutilate you, and then bring you back as a machine.  I don't know how he does it. He just does it."

Brock put the information together the best he could.  The situation didn't have to make sense, but it had to end in getting Hannah back alive and safe.  "Then this Chuck Durnham asshole is the guy we need to find.  We can force him to tell us what we need to know to get out of here.  He'll tell us where Hannah is, and how to fix you guys."

Brock was determined to inspire them, but the two of them visibly failed to match his enthusiasm.  They were too scared.

"I don't want anything to do with that man," Angel confessed, curling up against the headboard.  She was happy playing the defeatist.  In a miserable voice, "When I woke up the last time before this, my head was on a hook and my body was on a table.  Chuck was working on me.  God knows what he was doing.  Modifying me, maybe.  There were body parts everywhere, like human projects left unfinished.  Like I said, I'm not going anywhere near that man, if he is a man."

"He used to be a local firefighter."  James checked the barricade, and happy it was solid, he focused on them again.  "Chuck's father gave him a golden axe when he got his first job in a firehouse just outside of Blue Hills, though the man lived here in town.  I don't know why Chuck became the way he became.  Whatever's changed, we're now machines that run on money.  It's like we have meters inside of us, and if they run empty, we expire."

Brock couldn't help but shake his head.  "That doesn't explain the voices on the air, and the hot oil you described coming up from the ground."

"I've seen it too, the black oil."  Angel suddenly had a thought, so she turned to Brock.  "Wait, I was hiding from that horrible man, and I entered a house.  A typewriter was typing out a message. Yeah, I remember it now. It was a letter to you.  The typewriter was typing by itself, but I heard voices, and the air reeked of rotting flesh.  I ran out of there and oil dripped from the walls and the floor, and the whole place sank into this pool of black oil.  The house was gone."

"So you didn't write me."  It came out just as he thought it, all hope for saving a relationship with his sister a failure.

She refused to console him.  "Like I said, it was them, whoever's in the air.  It's supernatural or...or it's..."

"It's death," James broke in, his fingers posed contemplatively on his chin, rethinking everything he believed about the predicament in Blue Hills.  "These voices are obviously doing things to bring in people from the outside, including you, Brock."

"It brought me here too," Angel conceited, getting up, and searching through the mini-fridge and discovering a bottle of rum.  The fridge was already open.  Angel told them she'd put money into the slot without knowing what it meant and the door opened on its own.  She tilted the bottle into her mouth, sucking it down, and Brock was surprised when she offered him a taste.  "I'm sure you need this as much as I do."

"I'm sober now."

To her, it was a fuck you.

She asked James, "How about you?  You get your life together too?"

"Maybe later I'll have a drink," he said.

Not discouraged by their declines, Angel downed the rest of the mini-bottle and claimed another one in the fridge, but not before saying, "I was led here with my boyfriend.  He's a drug dealer.  He said he got a call about a cheap deal going down in Blue Hills.  The details were sketchy, but it brought us here.  That's when the man with the axe got a hold of us.  Then I woke in a room, my head was on a hook, and my boyfriend, I don't know what happened to him."

She mentioned the detail without any shift in emotion.  She was still addicted.  Her boyfriend was a resource, a tool to receive drugs and nothing more.  The front of sex and fake romance won most dealers over.  Nothing much had changed since the last time Brock talked to her when she left the rehab clinic in Beverly Hills.

"So this force in town, it's bringing in new people," James said to himself and then snapped his fingers once.  "Yes, it makes sense.  To bring in more money, right?  How else would this horrible place keep trickling on?"

"But why create this situation in the first place?"  Brock refocused the conversation to getting out of this room and searching for Hannah.  "I have to find Hannah.  I think this axe guy, what's-his-name, Chuck Durnham, is the only way to go forward.  We have to get him in a position where he'll tell us what he knows.  We can talk all we want, because it's only guesses.  We're wasting our time in here."

"Good luck getting to him," James scoffed.  "He's too dangerous.  He'll turn you into us.  Cut you into pieces and bring you back to life, and then you'll need money to survive too.  Problem is, there's not much of it around here anymore.  Money's next to impossible to find."

"And it's not dangerous being here doing what we're doing now?  It's not safe anywhere.  What makes you think you'll live that much longer being a coward?"

Angel sipped on the bottle, making a whistle sound with her lips.  "What makes you think we want to live at all?"

Brock ignored her.  "I know you want to live, James.  I know your wife is gone, but what about your friends? What about your life?  Look into the future.  There has to be something about life that you still want to enjoy.  You don't have to be the victim."

He appealed to Angel this time, returning to the optimism that created this trip and the hope his sister would one day care about him.  "You can hate me, Angel, and I can be mad that I'm here indirectly because of you, or I can help you.  We can save each other.  How about it?"

"Big brother comes to the rescue.  Man, fuck off.  Some therapist told you that you needed closure or a good cry with me.  That's why you're here, and that's the only reason."  Her drink was starting to kick in.  She gave him a vicious smile that could cut through glass.  "The feel good plan has blown up in your face, big bro."

"I'm here because I'm better now.  I want you to be better too.  That won't change, no matter what gets in the way."

"Shove the greeting card bullshit right up your greasy butthole.  I remember how you used to be, and you know what? You could be lying about your being clean.  Once a junky—"

"'—Always a junkie.' I've heard that crap, and I don't believe it.  I'm off it.  I've got a job.  I've got a good life."

"Hah, being a judge on a talent show?" Angel forced herself to laugh.  "You're a monkey with a tambourine.  You're washed up.  People like washed up famous people on TV.  Washed up assholes make viewers feel better about themselves.  You're still the man who squandered our father's fortune.  You're still the coke-nosed brat who fell from the top of the world and landed in the gutter, so don't tell me about your being clean, or how I could be like you if I tried.  Just fucking shut up about it already."

Brock raised his voice and grabbed her shoulders, really digging his grip in deep.  His face was inches from hers.  "I'm engaged to Hannah.  You remember her?  She's working on a movie.  She's working again.  She's clean too.  I love her, and I'm happy.  I want you to be my sister, but right now, it's me, your brother, telling you I want us to be a family again.  Perhaps even friends, like old times when the walls weren't falling down around us.  I mean it what I'm saying to you.  I miss you, Angel.  I want you to be a part of my wedding.  I want to be involved in your life somehow.  We have problems, but let's grow up and be adults.  All I'm asking for is an honest fucking chance, Angel, so quit playing the victim and let's escape this town with our lives."

Brock couldn't read her expression, because her face had turned into a blank slate.  She collected her thoughts, and he was immediately disgusted by what she had in store for him.  The smile on her face, it was one that admitted it knew every word she said would hurt him, and she loved inflicting the pain.

"I'm sure Hannah's still a junkie, and you've found someone who enjoys lying to themselves as much as you do, Brock.  So enjoy your new coke whore.  Fuck you, Brock.  I'm not buying a word you're telling me, so go back to your new buddy and figure it the fuck out because that's all I care about right now; not you, and certainly not your life's progress."

What he wanted to unleash upon her was preempted by James who had stripped the barricade down piece-by-piece.  James pressed his hand against the door as if to push it forward.  The man's face then turned confused.

James gasped in horror, "No, no, no, no, no." He turned to Brock as an infectious panic spread on his face.  "The door, it changed.  We can't escape!"

JENNA SHARPE

The woman who came from the bridge holding the gun was named Jenna Sharpe.  Willy dated her when he was sixteen for two months.  It was a hold your hands in the hallway of your high school scenario and kiss and hug before class situation.  Jenna was also the prettiest girl in the school.  She was also the captain of the cheerleading squad and in the dreams of any red blooded adolescent school boy.  Now in Blue Hills, Jenna's face was sullied by the snarl of pure animosity.  Cruelty replaced beauty.  She despised him, and he didn't know why. Her clothing was wet from crossing the creek.  She visibly shivered when the wind picked up.  Her black hair was disheveled and pasted onto her face.  Her face was cherry, burned by the wind.  Jenna was malnourished looking, twenty pounds too skinny.

Closing in on Willy, Jenna demanded, "You're going back to your car, and you're driving me where I tell you to go.  No questions.  You try anything, I'll shoot you.  All I want you to do is drive."

Willy turned back towards the car, praying he didn't get a bullet in the back.  She was shaken and disturbed.  Maybe she had seen some horrible things today as well.

She kept whispering to herself.  "Why am I the one?  Why me?  Why do I have to do this?  I never wanted any of this in my life."

"Who's making you do what?"  Willy blurted out.

The gun's nozzle was jammed into his back.  "Say nothing to me!  My family's dead.  My husband's dead.  I had to shoot them both.  I killed them because they tried to kill me.  Over five dollars.  Five fucking dollars.  You don't think I'll kill you too?"

"Whoa, whoa, I'm sorry.  It sounds like we both need the police.  You see, back at that historical house, some people—"

"Say nothing else!"  The Oldsmobile was right in front of him.  "Get in the car.  Drive where I tell you to drive and shut your mouth.  This is all because of you.  They're dead because of you."

"What the hell did I do?  I just arrived in town hours ago.  Whatever's happened, I assure you it's not my fault.  I'll help you any way I can.  Please put down the gun.  Let's talk and sort this out.  I'll drive you anywhere, Jenna, I promise.  It's not a problem."

She didn't hear him except for the word "drive."  "Yes, drive.  Cross the bridge.  I'll tell you where to go after that.  No more talking.  Just drive."

Jenna had jittery hands, including the finger that hovered over the trigger.  She had a nervous tick.  She was seeing things as her eyes strayed to the horizon, as if re-living terrible things.  He could sense it the way her eyes tensed and un-tensed.  Willy decided it was best to leave her be.  He would drive to where she told him to, and maybe the destination would answer a few questions about her and what was happening in Blue Hills.  What occurred at the reading of the will could've been happening everywhere else too.

Willy still didn't understand what exactly had happened at the reading of the will.

There was no way to explain someone's body parts popping off.

Driving beyond the bridge, they traveled along back roads and among heavy woods.  He didn't see much else.  Town was up north a few miles, but Jenna wanted him to hang a left at an unmarked side road.  Of all the things he guessed would've happened today in his old home town of Blue Hills, Willy never imagined being held at gunpoint by his ex-girlfriend he hadn't seen in years.  Talking to her was like begging for a bullet.  If she thought he was responsible for what was happening, then she must've been terrified of him.

Knowing this, Willy kept his question simple.  "Are you going to kill me?"

The twitch of a smile, her neurons were firing all wrong.  Her face was a living jigsaw puzzle of emotions.  "No, I'm not going to kill you."

She said it as if she regretted it.

The wheels kept turning, and Willy wasn't sure where they were driving to, but he soon recognized the back road.  Houses would crop up out of the thick every so often.  Finally, the two story yellow painted house appeared and Jenna asked him to turn in the driveway.  He couldn't help but give a start doing this.

It was his uncle's house.

The one that burned down fifteen years ago.

LOCKED IN

Brock had to confirm the truth for himself.  The bolt to the hotel room's door was unlocked, but there was a steel square stuck between the door and the wall panel that impeded any movement.  In the middle was the slit opening for a coin.

"James, did you see it happen?  Did you see the steel appear?"

"No."  James grabbed Brock's arm, shaking him.  "You have more change, right?  Tell me you've got more pocket change!"

"Whoa, wait. So what you're saying is you put a coin in it, and it opens."

"Everything requires money to function, yes.  I already went over this."

"We're like vending machines, but we're not full of candy," Angel chimed in.  Brock recognized her for a moment, the person who could make the weirdest jokes at the drop of a dime, but then she was gone.  Angel was once again his long lost sister who was drunk and craving cocaine.

"The only way to go about this is apprehending that axe guy," Brock proposed again.  "Whatever it takes, we'll make him answer our questions.  I'll find Hannah, and then we can ask him what he's doing with that money."

"I remember him assembling me," Angel said, thinking out loud.  "I saw body parts all over the place.  I think I woke when I wasn't supposed to.  He was freaked out by my 'wide eyes' looking at him.  He took me apart, then he put something in me, and then rebuilt me.  I don't think he always succeeds in rebuilding people.  That place was a killing floor.  A butcher's block.  Blood everywhere."

"Where were you when that happened?"  James came to her side and lowered to one knee.  "What else do you remember?  You must tell us everything about that experience. Any details that come to mind, please."

Brock was surprised she responded to James.  "It was in a room, a dark room.  I can't recall anything else.  After it's done, I wake up in the street, sensing this need to find money, and I end up here, falling asleep on the bed, and then you woke me.  As far as the sleep goes, I also remember nothing.  Nothing at all.  It's pretty much like I was dead in every way."

James returned to the door, re-attempting to open it and once again failing.  "Damn it, we're trapped.  We're getting nowhere."

Brock went about checking the bathroom. The door was closed, also locked in place by a steel plate into the doorframe with a slit in the middle.  The access begged to be fed, he thought.  He bent down to check the air vent, also secured by two steel plates.  "No other way out.  It's all secure."

"Fuck this bullshit!"  James shouted, lifting up a chair and hurling it into the wall.  The connection merely cracked the plaster. Beneath the cracks was solid steel.

James pointed at the wall.  "H-how did that happen? None of us heard it change.  It would've been loud, wood being replaced by steel, right?  I've been asking this myself the whole time, so why do I keep on asking now?  There's no Goddamn answer."

"You still can't give up."  Brock leaned against the wall, trying to think of the next step.  "So we're trapped.  So we think outside the box."

James wasn't prone to accept positivity at this point.  "We can readjust our thinking all we want.  We're trapped.  End of story."

Angel expressed the sentiment better.  "We're fucked."

TIM HAWKER'S HOUSE

Uncle Hawker's house wasn't located in the woods when Willy was a kid.  It was actually located along a residential area of older houses the city wanted to demolish almost two decades ago to build a new highway system that connected to the Interstate.  Considering how strange it was the new location of the house, it was also strange the house was here because it had burned down.  Those charred remains were cleared out and the property was used for the interstate project, but that didn't seem to matter today.  Everything happening in Blue Hills kept defying reality, and something else was going to happen soon to further cement the fact.

There was a long driveway a quarter of a mile long that also didn't exist when his uncle's house was first around.  Jenna kept her gun steady in her hand, urging him to keep going.  Willy feared the house with every turn of the wheels.

What made the house return?

Willy asked Jenna that question.  She didn't hear him at first, then moments later, she snapped out of her inner thoughts.  Jenna gave him a long stare.  His question had confounded her, so she said, "You know why the house is here.  You know why all of this is happening.  Quit playing dumb.  It doesn't make me hate you any less.  Playing dumb won't save you.  It won't save anyone."

The scathing words didn't hit home like she intended to.  There was fear in her eyes.  Her act was a front, so he did something bold.  Once they were in front of the house, Willy slammed down on the gas.  The car lurched forward with a jerk, and then he struck the brakes.  Jenna was pushed forward, and Willy braced himself as she hit the dash.  He grabbed the gun out of her hands, stole the keys, and rushed out of the car.

Willy's hands shook in the pistol's grip.  He didn't want the weapon, but he also didn't want a crazy bitch's bullet in his back either.  Jenna stumbled out with her hands to her face.  Her nose was bloodied.  He was about to apologize to her, but the blow served to numb her anger.

They stood together in silence, the car the only thing between them.

"What do we do now?'  Willy demanded.  "If I would've gone along with your plan, what would you tell me to do next?"

Jenna didn't seem to care.  "My job's done.  You're here."  Her hands trembled at saying this next bit.  "I'm through with my part."

"You're...through?  Through with what?"

Jenna wore a sarcastic smile.  Then the expression crumbled into one of intense loathing.  "Life isn't much when you think about it, Willy.  You're given a few chances to really appreciate it, and when you do appreciate it the most, that's the moment it's about to be taken away from you."  She dabbed a tear out of the corner of her eye.  "Not everybody can say they truly appreciated life when the end comes.  I should count it as a blessing that I had that chance to experience that moment of clarity."

Her explanation was cut short.  He heard the uncoiling of a spring, like rusty metal scraping against rusty metal.  What had happened to Tally suddenly happened to Jenna.  An unseen force popped off her head from the neck with a splitting of skin and a gush of arterial sprays.  Her arms spat out of the sockets, launching them across the lawn.  They landed like two planks of stiff wood.  When her legs went out from under her, Willy ran for the car.

"Fuck this!"

Willy gathered up the keys, dropped them, and had to get on his hands and knees to scoop them up from the ground.  His body had gone stiff with fear.  He reserved his mental capacities for one goal.  Drive the hell out of there.

He managed to pick up the keys and guide them into the door's lock.  It scraped metal and wouldn't go into the hole.

"What the—!"

The key hole was blocked by a square of steel.

Willy shattered the window with the butt of the pistol after four blows.  He cleared the glass from the edges and reached in to open the door.  It came open, and he cleared the glass from the upholstery the best he could before sitting down.

The car's ignition was blocked by a piece of steel.

Without knowing why, the car tipped backwards.  Both back tires popped, startling him.  The smell of scorched meat, the iron in blood, and tang of something ripe, wrong, and dead caused him to gag and cover his nose and mouth.  The car lowered itself.  Willy saw it happen in the rearview mirror first.  The back tires were sinking into a puddle of boiling hot tar.  Soon, the car tipped upwards like a sinking cruise liner into the ocean.

Sprinting from the car, Willy was surrounded by the boiling tar.  The only place he could run was towards the front steps of his uncle's house.   Once there, he inspected the tar better.  There were color swirls and tints to the substance, lots of reds, greens, blacks, and flesh tones.  Willy kept smelling something offal.  It turned his stomach.  He wanted to puke, yet his fear kept the urge at bay.  His senses refused to let down their guard.  Danger surrounded him.

Staring harder at the burning black stuff, various bones began to surface.  Boiled clean skulls and human spines mostly, each boiling in the mess, and soon, sucked back down with a short burst of noxious bubbles.

All along the yard, high pressure puffs of air cut up the grass, slicing it up into thin clods that shot up head high.  The remains of Jenna's body sank into the damaged earth as the black tar pooled up from the holes and melted the human remains in seconds.  What used to be his old girlfriend was now dissolved.

The yard was filling up with the black as more of the turf was blown away by pockets of surging air.  Willy wasn't sure where to run to.  The entire stretch of the yard was boiling in black.  He stood on the cement walkway, waiting for the black to reach out to him and pull him under and kill him.

Voices on the air arrived out of nowhere and everywhere.  The words caused his skin to prick and pang.  Willy went stiff taking in what they said to him.

"Hello welcome/good to see you again, Willy/come inside, we have a lot of catching up to do/this is all for you, Willy/please come in so we can reacquaint ourselves/just step inside where it's safe, Willy/come on in and we'll talk."

The black sledge edged towards the concrete steps, causing steam to rise.  He wasn't sure if the house was safe, but it was better than dying right here right now.  Willy dodged the black stuff by opening the door and entering the house.

PLANNING AN ESCAPE

Brock returned to the problem at hand.  "Do we know anything else about this axe guy?"

Angel said, "He was once a fireman."

"James already told me that." Brock was annoyed.  "Was he possessed?  Did he go crazy?  What made him do the things he's doing now?"

Something occurred to James suddenly.  "He's not possessed or crazy, I don't think.  But when he's close by, sometimes I notice he's got that oil on him.  The oil that comes up from the ground.  The oil's full of bones and it reeks of death.  Maybe that's what changed him.  The oil."

"You're saying the dead are inside him?"

"I'm saying I don't know anything about the oil.  I'm just guessing.  Whatever it is, it's obviously bad."

"He's only guessing, Brock," Angel said, twisting her head at him and giving him that manipulative smile.  She could con charity out of its life savings with that evil smile.  "Why don't you back off of us?  Nobody knows what's really happening except that we'll either be asleep or dead soon.  I'm sure that axe guy knows we're here.  He'll chop down the door and clean us out of money.  End of story."

"But why do it at all?"  Brock expected Angel's snappy response.  "I know, I know, Jesus, nobody knows why, but I'm asking anyway.  Why make people operate on money?  It's ironic."

"Ironic," Angel scoffed.  "You're ridiculous, Brock.  Are you sure you're clean?  You're talking like an idiot."

"I mean it's like someone's joke or statement about society."

James understood him.  "It's been planned, it seems.  I get what you're saying.  But who is pulling it off?  Whatever means it would take to pull this off, it's incredible."

"We must find that axe man and shake him down."

Angel shoved a pillow in her face and stifled a scream.  "This is ridiculous!  You guys are talking in circles.  And if you go against that man, you're going to get yourselves killed."

Brock was angry.  "That man hasn't done anything to me.  I'm not a machine yet.  I can fight him."

The information served as a slap to her face.  "Oh please.  You'll be his next victim.  You're a fucking pansy, Brock."

"You guys must hate each other," James said, a smile crossing his face that Brock wanted to punch off.  "Dysfunction city."

"That's what the Richards family is famous for."  Angel stood up.  She was tired of resting on the bed.  She moved closer to James to better spell it out.  "Big brother joined me in snorting our way through millions.  It was our father's fortune.  You've heard of Gene Richards, haven't you?"

"Yeah, he was as funny as David Letterman on his late night show.  The human petting zoo was his funniest bit.  Funnier than Leno's "Headlines.""

"Yeah, funnier than "Headlines,"" Angel said sadly.

"So big brother lets me get addicted to coke, watches me fuck any stranger I could get my hands on, and lord knows, I could've been raped and he wouldn't know it and wouldn't give a shit either."

"Angel, it's complicated," Brock insisted.  "You're right.  I'm a terrible brother.  But I'm trying to change.  I have changed."

James asked them to help him try and break through the door again.  The attempts were futile.  They smashed the mini-fridge into the door, and the grain wasn't dented or broken.  Using that disappointment, they dismantled the bed, twisting the legs off and using them as clubs, and as they beat against the door, doing more harm to their bludgeons than the door, Angel searched for change underneath the square of carpet that was revealed.  Cursing after coming up empty, she rubbed the dust bunnies off her arms and sat down in the corner chair, shaking her head at them disapprovingly.

Brock snarled, "Instead of giving up, why don't you help?"

"Because you're not getting out of here without money."

James was out-of-breath and plopped onto the floor in a defeated pile.  "Fine, you're right.  I can't do anymore."  He joked to himself, "I'm too old for this shit."

Brock sat down next to him.  "It's not good for the back, these life and death situations."

The room was still for a moment, all of them turning over their own thoughts, struggling with the situation their own way, until Angel spoke up.  "There is one good thing about our predicament."

Brock couldn't wait to hear it.  "And what would that be?"

"I haven't had the craving.  It's as if I've never had cocaine before.  The memory of it is there, but the physical part of it is gone.  It's very strange, but I like it."

"I got through my morning without coffee," James joked.  "I can drink an entire pot in a day, easy.  I'm retired.  That's what I do.  I drink coffee.  I've taken up whittling.  Owls, turkeys, chickadees, any Virginia fauna I could dream up with my knife, I'd create.  My wife would keep feeding me coffee out on my back deck facing the woods, and she'd say, "It's coming along, isn't it" no matter how good or shitty my projects turned out.  I'd sell the good ones at the annual state fair. How silly is that?  Don't I sound retired?  I'd make three to four hundred dollars in a good year.  That's a good year."

"That's not silly," Angel said, though she was still spaced out on her own thoughts to care too deeply about James and his whittling.  "Not silly at all."

"Maybe not, but I could be doing other things.  My wife wanted to travel more.  I thought we didn't have the money.  It's stupid now, considering all of this.  She's gone forever.  We could've traveled to every spot in Europe, seen Egypt, and I worried about money.  It's such a waste of life."

Brock rested his hands against his knees and faced the floor. That's when he closed his eyes for a moment.  Relaxing enough to steady his thoughts, the easy going moment was ended when James suddenly shrieked in agony.

WELCOME, WILLY

When Willy closed the front door, it locked itself.  A steel panel formed between the door knob and the wall that kept him from opening it back up.  Willy wanted to find a way to open it again, but the room itself stopped him.  It was exactly like his late uncle's when he was a little kid.  The living room was quaint with the couch covered by a floral print spread.  A brown and white rug took up most of the floor space.  An old RCA record player stood among a vast collection of vintage records.  The fire place was dead in the brick wall.  Uncle Tim let him light the match and put it to rolled up newspapers that started the fire during the winter.

A stabbing feeling of nostalgia hit him.  Willy enjoyed standing in this house, but it was something that shouldn't be.  The past couldn't happen again, and here he was, living it as a young adult, standing in a house that didn't exist, a house that wasn't where it was supposed to be.  He lived in this house the last two years of his uncle's life.  His parents divorced when Willy was only six years old.  Their scathing and violent fights between a truck driver with an alcohol problem and a lonely housewife with an even bigger alcohol dependency created irreconcilable differences.  Willy had seen both his parents hit each other.  He had seen his mother's nose broken on two different occasions.  The last fight, his father had thrown Willy's mother down the stairs and broke her neck.  She survived, but she never walked the same.  Ever since then, his mother wanted nothing to do with her ex-husband or the child they brought into the world.  The custody battle wasn't a battle.  They gave Willy up to Uncle Tim and his Aunt Shirley. The two scooped him up with open arms and loved him.  The two years in this house were the best of Willy's childhood.

The feeling of nostalgia passed.  Willy had to call the police.  He hurried through the kitchen and located the phone on the wall.  A steel plate blocked the number keys.  He noticed the thin slot in the middle.  It was like an opening.

"What the hell is this?"

Willy then peered out the living room window.  The pools of tar were gone, but the holes in the yard remained.  Steam exuded from them as if the black tar was on standby.  If he tried to escape, he would be melted by the sick stuff.

There was no trace of Jenna's body.

What she said to him before her body went to pieces made it seem like he had something to do with what had been happening.  Willy wasn't clear what part he played in this bizarre situation, if any, but these events were taking a strange turn.  The black stuff had guided him into the house.  This was all meant for him somehow.

He wasn't sure what to do with himself now that he was in the house, so he gave himself the tour.  Willy walked to the top level, to his aunt and uncle's room.  It was the same as it had been when he was a kid, so he moved on.  In his old room, Willy had the same space themed wall paper.  It looked like he was looking back at earth from another planet.  He used to dig the idea of being an astronaut, even though he later became a financial advisor for Bank U.S.A. instead of an astronaut.  He had been unemployed for the last six months.  His wife, Summer, was at home on paternity leave from being a second grade school teacher.  He decided to take the trip for the reading of the will (very unexpected fifteen years later, but the mail they received was official; even the office he called confirmed the will was real) to be alone to clear his mind and get out of the house.  Summer was driving him crazy with talk about taking a lower paying job to pay the bills.  Willy couldn't picture himself working for less money.  Summer said it was a man thing, and Willy agreed.  His pride couldn't take the hit.

A long drive alone after gaining some kind of money from the will would've hit the spot, but what was happening in Blue Hills, he was beginning to worry if he'd ever make it out of this town alive.

Willy returned to the first floor and pondered his next move.  The basement was the last place he hadn't been in the house.  Uncle Tim kept it locked up when he was a kid.  Under no circumstances are you to go down alone, Willy, his uncle advised.  The things down there are precious to me.  My things are fun to play with, but they are delicate.  I've worked hard on them for many years.  They're the most precious things I own.

In the basement, those were the best times he had in the house.  He was curious about the room, and he wasn't sure why he didn't go straight down into the cellar to begin with.

When he tried the door to the cellar, the lock crunched.

The door was locked.

HANNAH

One of Hannah's eyes were glued shut and the other could barely open.  Afraid to move, and weakened to the point that she couldn't move, Hannah remained still.  She felt something cold and wet absorb into the clothing on her back.  Every muscle in her body tightened, and to avoid those cramping muscles, she turned to one side.  New things came into view.  Folds of a tarp spread out on the floor and the mysterious lump underneath the blue canvas.  Working up the strength to check the other side of her body, she moaned in more pain, then gave up moving for a moment.

Hannah smacked her lips.  Her mouth was bone-dry.  She kept trying to open the other eye, but it was fused shut.  Closing her good eye to calm her head, she started listening.  She recognized the roll of tires.  The vehicle was driving down a winding back road.  She detected the rustle of tree limbs and the gusts of wind.  She had been in the woods with Brock before she woke, but Brock wasn't here, or she thought he wasn't here.  She shouted for him and only a mouse's whisper exited her throat.  The sounds were clotted by phlegm, and the taste of blood in the back of her throat caused her to gag.

Hannah questioned if she was paralyzed, because she suddenly couldn't move anymore.  She finally did turn her neck, and this time, she screamed, unleashing her emotions at the face next to hers slicked over in blood.  A gnarly wound split open the victim's sinus cavity.  The lips were split in half as was the chin.  She could see inside the bones of the victim's sinus cavity.  The wound was the shape of an upside down door wedge, or the blade of an axe.  Yes, it was the blade of an axe, she decided.  She replayed the attack in the woods from earlier, how Brock was shoved into the raging river by the hulking attacker and swept downriver, probably drowned, and here she was in the back of the axe man's truck being driven to God knows where.  Helpless with this information, she was unable to do anything but scream, and that's when she folded to the anxiety and passed out in shock.

Hannah's head was the only thing swinging back and forth, and the motion woke her.  Opening her good eye, Hannah face's was pressed up against the fabric of a t-shirt.  The article was placed over her head like a hood.  She could smell him, her captor, the man with the golden axe, in whiffs of armpit and the musk of hard work.  She kept silent, not letting the man know she was awake.  She still couldn't move.

She felt the sensation of being moved, traveling from outdoors to the inside of a shelter where the air was stifling and thick.  The man had kicked open a door and worked his way inside with grunts of effort.  The way got darker, the cover of night turning into solid pitch black.  She was spun right side up, then upside down, and then dropped on her side onto a cold concrete floor.  The half of her face pressed onto the ground was covered in syrupy blood, and she could feel its thick and cold composition.

Mimicking a scream without the vocal payoff, Hannah stayed motionless and strewn like an article of wet clothing.  The man kicked open a door again and another body was placed up against her back.  He kept repeating the work, bringing in a new body, then unloading it, until he was finished and went about another task.  This wasn't a man, she believed, but a lunatic.

Her head wriggled out of the t-shirt.  She viewed the room, throwing her good eye up to the walls, the floors, the corners of the room, anywhere the moonlight managed to sneak through the windows in the room.  Every surface glistened wet with red.

She counted seven times the man had kicked open the door and re-entered with a new body.  Whatever he was going to do here, it wasn't going to end well.  Hannah tried working her fingers.  No nerve connection, it seemed, or synapse communication.  She was a lump of immovable flesh.

Tears spooled out of her eyes; she drew comfort from the act.  Thoughts entered her mind, mostly of Brock.  She had seen his body swept up in the white current, floating along like a stray buoy.  Was he alive?

He was unconscious hitting the water.  How could he have swam to safety?

Failing to lie to herself in order to patch her broken hope, she understood Brock wouldn't be here to save her.  She had to survive this on her own.

Once again faced with the prospect of death, Hannah waited, listened, and prayed in her head that all would somehow be well in the end, even when the lights in the room flickered on and everything in the room could clearly be seen.

Life re-entered Hannah's body.  A paralysis continued to keep her shiftless.  She was really frozen in place by something else she wouldn't understand for another few moments.  She had been lifted down from up high as if she'd been hanging from the ceiling by the grungy killer who shed his hot stench in her direction as he worked.  She had been stripped naked, because she could see her own clothing strewn on the floor.  The man placed her onto a wooden table and turned her over.  A hot bullet finger traveled up her spine, and then she smelled a magic marker and the wet tip tracing both her shoulder blades.

The fear in her only accumulated.  Forced still by her atrophied muscles, she was unable to crawl from the wooden surface or the tabletop.  Then she smelled something horrible, far worse than the man's body odor.  It was the malodorous stench of death.  The stench obscured the room in a strange yellowish haze.  Then came the words.  Hundreds of speakers were rambling, talking with elegance, crafting profanity, singing, shrieking, laughing amiably or cursing wholeheartedly.  Hannah was instantly consumed by death in both auditory and olfactory forms.  As the words kept churning from everywhere and nowhere, she overheard the harsh spinning of an electric drill.

Awake once again, Hannah found herself clothed, though her old clothes were dirty, the used feeling of absorbed sweat and dried blood discomforting to feel against the skin. She was on the floor of the man's workshop.  She looked up to find the man toiling on a tabletop, bent over, clutching a drill in one hand and placing his other hand in the center of a body's back with the other.  The mechanical whine droned on as he delved the steel bit through bone, boring deep, and then pulling back, somehow satisfied with the work he'd done.  Then he toked hard on the cigarette dangling from his mouth.  This was her world now, Hannah thought, filled with blood, ache, and cigarette smoke.

Spitting out his cigarette, it landed next to her body, chunks of hot ash striking her leg.  Hannah remained calm, holding in the need to scream.  If she breathed too loud or jerked in spasm, she would alert the man.  What would he do to her then?  What hadn't he done to her up to this point?

Ever since she opened her eyes, a craving took hold.  It wasn't hunger or thirst.  It was implacable, yet she needed to quench it.  The sense of need was immediate; if she didn't possess what her body begged of her, she'd be dead, she sensed.

Hannah's eyes roamed about the room, locking onto walls of tools and the bare walls spattered in old blood over layers and layers of even older blood.

What she craved wasn't here.

Unable to move, Hannah watched the hulking man at work, the man taking aim with the drill bit, breathing out hard, taking focus, his eyes shrinking in their dark sockets like magnifying lenses.  At that's when it happened.  An eruption of blood from five sources spat out across the room accompanied by the dislocation of bones, the sound of bed springs untwisting, and the ripping of muscle tissue, like sheets being shredded.  Hannah couldn't shut her eyes to it, it was amazing, impossible, grizzly, and insane.

The last sound had her eyes gaping wide.  Her bodily processes were kick-started, and her limbs were ready to batter forward and scour the ground for her craving with each clang of metal against the floor.

Cursing in a boiling string of nonsense from his throat, the man bent down around his work table to collect the human limbs that had shot out across the floor and slapped them back onto the table.  "I'll have to put this one back together too.  Goddamn it."

Then the man disappeared down the hallway, stomping away in frustration.

Something else had fallen from the body, and when she saw what it was, she wanted it badly.   Able to move, she did so quickly, getting up on all fours to grab the coins, the bloody wads of dollar bills, the random bits of jewelry, the rings with diamonds crusted in blood and hunks of muscle tissue.  Everything was wet and glistening, but oh so valuable, she thought, gathering the riches in her grip until she was startled.

It wasn't painful, yet it was very bizarre.  It had her gaping eyed and open mouthed watching the coins sink into her skin.  The wads of cash, the rings, the jewelry, all of the valuables worked their way through the skin that opened in slits, puckered wide, and sucked in the rewards.

A door was thrown open.  The man had returned.  "I can't keep doing this shit.  I'm losing my focus.  I'm losing my mind."  He threw his head up to the ceiling.  "Can't you see I can only do so much?  Why can't you see what I'm going through?  I've put in too much work already.  Will this ever end?  Will this ever end?"

Hannah crawled back to her spot on the floor and played dead.  The man stared at the table and the blood trickling down from the edges onto the floor.  He rested his head against the wall and groaned under his breath after closing his eyes.  The man hadn't slept for a time, it seemed. Who is this guy, she thought, a crazy murderer or a tormented victim?

The air suddenly turned extra putrid.  Hannah could only imagine how many body parts he had dismembered and how many remains of failed projects were in piles about the house.  The basement was festooned in wilting, rotting, jellying corpses.  The air was getting hotter.  The air was becoming visible too.  It was a yellow fog.  When that fog was at its heaviest, the dead began to speak.  The ceiling plaster crumbled, rendering new cracks along the walls, the foundation protesting against the pressure.

The dead beckoned.

"Don't fight what you can't understand/this is your duty/or we can find someone else to do your work/many others would find bliss in safety/bliss in escaping death/or shall we torment your wife and kids in hell/if you wish them to ever leave hell you will do as you're told/obey us, obey us forever."

Digging his hands into his scalp, wadding up his soiled bloody hair, he growled and kicked aside an empty paint bucket.  "Fine, I'll get back to work, but you remember your promise.  You will release my family from hell!"

The dead were pleased.  The fog suddenly dissipated.  The man left the room, locking the door behind him.  This was her chance. Hannah shot up to her knees, waiting for his steps to go out the front door before turning the knob of the nearest door.  The door was locked.  Kicking, pulling, clawing, shouting at the barrier, she realized it was useless until she turned around.

Power tools were everywhere.

You can lock the door all you want, you bastard.

I'm still getting out.

Scanning the rows of tools covered in cherries of serrated flesh and spatters of blood, she picked up an electric saw, the steel teeth an inch deep.  Confident she could use this against the man if he returned, she plugged it in, and when she went about turning it on, she noticed the trigger was underneath a steel shell with a thin slit in the middle.  It was just like the phones at that house.

The tool was useless to her, so she threw it across the room.  Her eyes moved about the room, and she gasped in shock, catching the limbless and headless torso on the table.

"Jesus Christ."   Hannah's body, her face, everything her body owned cringed.

Hannah raced to the other side of the room, hurrying down a short hallway of bloody footprints, and tried the last door in the basement.  Hannah clasped the cold doorknob that was wet with blood, wet from where that man had recently touched it.  Against her better judgment, and failing to wonder why this door was not locked, she opened the door anyway.  Pulling it back slowly, she edged into the room.  When she flipped on the wall light, she faced the piled up remains of over fifty corpses.

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 what 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 that 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 anywhere 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 after 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.  Each 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."

ANGEL

Angel had been on the track team in high school.  This was at a private school in Beverly Hills.  She won numerous trophies for the quarter-mile relay, but now that she was in her late forties, de-conditioned by drugs, alcohol, and unemployment, she was nearly vomiting after racing from the hotel after only traveling four blocks.  Brock's presence incited too many conflicting emotions.  The main conflict being that she hadn't changed one bit since the last time they were together in rehab.  Brock had cleaned up and was about to marry his old friend, Hannah.  His life looked pretty damn good.  She, on the other hand, had countless strings of failed, abusive relationships, and a mean cocaine addiction.  Her life looked pretty much like shit.

Angel forced herself to keep up a jogging stride moving down the road.  She hoped to find a house, a bridge to hide under, or anything other place to stay out-of-sight.  She kept pace up until she was alerted by the car that pulled up to her.  It was a heavy-duty pick-up truck.  She was about to scream for her life when she noticed it was Dean, her boyfriend, behind the wheel.  He too had been delivered into this place of dangerous confusion.  He gave her a kind smile while pulling up next to her.  The man was like her, a washed up Hollywood producer whose drug fix became number one over everything else.  They were both hopeless.

"Hop in," Dean invited.  "We're getting out of here right now."

Angel accepted the offer and stepped up into the truck.  Angel explained to him what happened to her since they were split up. Dean kept quiet.  He drove on, staring out at all corners of the area to ensure their safety.

"Can you believe Brock's here?"

Dean shook his head.  No, he couldn't believe it.

"What's wrong with you?"  The vibe Dean cast was disconcerting.  The life had been taken from him, it seemed.  "Did something happen to you?  Are you hurt?"

Angel couldn't remember much about the last time they were together beyond going unconscious when the man with the golden axe attacked them while they were looking for their coke hook-up.  The hook-up was a guy named Seth who was supposed to provide them a fun day at the local hotel once they were done with business. "A spa day," or as they liked to call it, "a snow day."  The meet-up never happened.  Seth couldn't be found.

"Nothing happened to me," Dean insisted, making a left turn into the road that led into the woods.  The branches cast moving shadows over both of their faces.  "I'm fine.  I'm okay.  I'm scared like you, is all."

Angel kept quiet.  She knew about Dean's mood swings.  He could be reaching to hug her one moment then swinging his hand to hit her the next.  "I'm glad you're okay, Dean.  Thank God you're here.  I don't know where I'd be without you."

When she stroked his leg, he stiffened up.  He'd been jerked from deep thought.  "Are you sure you're okay?"

Dean snapped at her, clutching the wheel white-knuckled.  "How many times do I have to fucking tell you, I'm fine.  I'm a-okay.  So quit asking me.  Shut up."

Angel scooted away from him towards the car door.  She clutched the handle, wondering if she should bail herself out and start running.  She had no reason to stay with him beyond an easy coke-connection, and she hadn't had the cravings since entering Blue Hills.

Sensing her change of heart, Dean apologized. "Listen, I'm a bit weird right now.  It's been hell.  I'm sure it's been hell for you too.  I'm sorry I got angry.  I only want to get out of here."

"Me too," Angel said, though meekly.  She still harbored the dreadful feeling something was different about Dean that shouldn't be different.  "Let's just get out of here."

Driving down the wooded road, they were quiet for a time until Dean spoke up again.  "I've learned a few things about what's happening here."

"Like what?"

Dean cleared his throat.  His eyes were buggy while surveying the woods.  Sometimes he was straight-faced, then he jerked in shock seeing something in the distance she couldn't locate.  "I've been following that man around.  The one who attacked us.  The one with the axe."

"I remember him."

"He does things to make us the way we are."

"What does he do?"

"He alters our bodies.  The dead talk to him and tell him how to do it.  He splits us open when we're not awake.  He gets inside of us, Angel, and modifies us.  He makes it so we need money to survive.  But why do it in the first place?  Who's benefiting from altering us like that?  Nobody," he cackled under his breath, "except for the dead.  They're the ones doing this.  I don't know why because it doesn't matter." Under his breath, "Only one thing matters."

Spinning the wheel, the truck suddenly shot to the side of the road.  Dean slammed the brakes, and without a seatbelt, she struck her nose against the dashboard.  Her head exploded with a nagging and burning sensation. Her eyes clouded up with purple blotches.  She was dizzy and disorientated.  Dean was garbling nonsense under his breath.  He was talking to no one, giving himself instructions aloud, then seizing her by the throat, pushing her up against him, his face twitching with maniacal ambitions.

"You saw what that axe man did to those people.  He ripped it right out of their backs and pulled it right out.  I know what's inside the box.  I know what's inside of you, Angel!  I NEED IT!"

Angel came to once she caught the knife shine in his hand.  What Dean had pulled out from underneath the seat.  He raised it up, the blade aimed downwards to delve into her back. Defending herself, she managed to jiggle the door handle and took a freefall backwards.  Scooping herself up with her hands after hitting the ground, her feet propelled her forward.  She created as much distance from Dean as possible.

Escaping ten yards, she was halted by the cutting howl that erupted from within the truck.  She turned around, intending to achieve a brief glimpse of her boyfriend.  Seeing him, she was compelled to hurry back to the truck.  Angel was horrified and astounded.  A gulf of blood fired out of the driver's side window as if blasted from a high powered hose.  What confused her was the sound of metal clanging, of coins clashing together, as they pinged against one other.

Ignoring the blood and its origin, Angel lunged for the money, stealing a bloody handful in each hand, before the coins gained a life of their own.  Moving, shifting, traveling, they were drawn by an invisible force into the woods.  Further on down the road, copper, nickel, and bronze specks were diminishing flecks of light and refractions.  The money in her hands slipped between the cracks of her fingers, flying up, and then coming back down only to be dragged into the woods and sucked into the distance.

Angel remembered the quarter firing out of James's forearm back at the hotel room.  She turned to the car, the side door leaking red from it's bottom crack.  The windows had shattered.  The coins had acted as bullets, and there was Dean's head turned inside out, a blob of pink pulp and skull shards.  Both his eyes had been minced into strings of meat.  She navigated the gory work of what used to be a man and noticed how his chest had also spat out the money from inside of him.  His fingers, bent in tension, were split in half.  His arms were diced and riddled with wounds.  All of him was ruined.

Angel backtracked from the truck.  She was shaking her head in denial, unable to breathe, choking on the images that would forever be a cruel stamp in her mind.  Awkwardly putting her feet down, she stumbled and fell to the ground.  She was weak now, literally unable to move.  She tipped onto her side, laying down in the middle of the road, and the sleep she once experienced in the hotel took hold of her once again.

FOOT WORK

Brock asked James, "Are you sure you know where this guy lives?"

They had walked for what seemed many miles.  Every block showcased another lifeless body who couldn't come up with enough money to stay alive.  Brock was growing leery of the surroundings, a residential area where he caught shifts of movement within houses.  He knew others were alive watching them, sizing them up of worth.  Everybody in this town was a criminal or a thief.

Murdered victims littered the roads as well.  Stinking bodies.  Victims with their throats slit, and others with a large hole in their backs the shape of a box.  James would say aloud who they were and what they did for a living as simple condolences.

"That was Margaret Chauffer; she used to play the organ at the Methodist church.  Tim Hanover was the deputy sheriff.  Linda Evanson sold used cars alongside her husband Mike.  That's little Wendy Milford. I only know her because she sold me Girl Scout cookies."

James bent down next to the next female body up ahead, turning her over and gasping in shock.  "What are you doing here, Nora?"

Nora had received an axe wound to the face, what opened up her sinus cavity, both her eyes wide as if seeing the blade come down moments before it hit home.  James pet the tangles of her dyed, platinum blonde hair.  "You came here because they tricked you, didn't they?  Why did they do that to you?  Why couldn't they leave you alone?"

Brock lowered down next to him, but the man was shoved him away.  "Back off.  This is my sister.  She doesn't live here.  She had nothing to do with this.  They," sobbing hard, "they tricked her into coming here."

Brock stood back, letting the man mourn without interruption.  "That's how they brought me here too."

The words did nothing to console James.  Brock didn't blame James for needing a moment.  Brock averted his attention to the local houses on the block and caught a strange sight.  Many of the trees had the steel square and slot on them.  So did garage doors, windows, doors, and in patches of lawns, stamped into the dirt.  The road had many of them too, and Brock was stumped as to there purpose.

Things were changing, and he couldn't help but rouse James from his moment.  "We really should get moving.  I don't like what I'm seeing one bit."

James kept crying, his head against Nora's chest.  He was trying to soothe himself.  He refused to accept his sister was deceased.

"I'm sorry, James, but I don't like what I'm seeing here.  The sooner we get to that man's house and get some answers, the better."

"I can't leave her," James whispered, rocking her body in his arms.  "We can't beat this place.  We just can't.  We're up against so much we don't understand."

"What if this continues outside of Blue Hills?  What if more people keep coming here?  Other loved ones and friends of people will die too. They have my fiancé, and they've taken over my sister.  Who else will they take, James?  Eventually everybody."

"We can't win," James said in resignation.  He glared up at him with seething eyes.  "Quit lying to yourself, Brock.  This is something stronger than all of us.  Beyond our help."

"Then I'll die fighting.  I'll die looking for Hannah.  I don't care."

The wind picked up.  Brock caught an acrid whiff of burning flesh.  It was real, not the incorporeal matter he'd come upon previously.  Someone had set fire to a body.  He caught a tower of smoke filter up through the woods miles off.

James left his sister on the street, suddenly afraid to be near her.  He pointed a shaky finger at her body.  Brock eyed the dead woman many moments before he noticed the square of steel on her neck the size of a rubber eraser with a slit in the center.

"That wasn't there moments ago," James said in a hushed voice.  "I didn't see it happen, and I sure as hell didn't hear it happen.  It just appeared.  No cause.  No reason."

Brock pointed up the road.  "We need to get moving.  Something's changing, and I don't want to be out in the open when this reaches its full potential."

"You're right," James agreed, finding himself again.  He took the first steps up the road.  "The axe man's place isn't too much further.  Maybe half a mile."

It was then the words emanated from the sky.  They were projected with a bass resonance that shook everything, including the leaves from the trees.  "Die fighting/die you will/death is ours to give to you/try and fight us/you will surely writhe in the agonies of hell/so the real game will begin /play our games/for hell has grown tiresome/killing life is what we do now/so die fighting/die in our name/die playing our games."

Death tainted the air.  The burnt flesh fog reeked.  Brock thought of hundreds, perhaps thousands of bodies fouling up the air.  It was like a gas breathing up from the ground.  Pockets of earth exploded in dirt clods and tufts all around the area, spitting out thick plumes of yellowish vapor.  Then up from the holes came the gurgling, boiling, popping black oil.

Now, they wouldn't walk to Chuck Durnham's house.

They would run.

Brock heard James blather directions to the house under shaky breath.  They raced on, turning from one residential road to the next.  They made a turn and were running on a back road.  "The man...he...lives...off the beaten...path...the house is alone...his father's old property..."

The drumming of his pulse in his ears couldn't erase the sound of the earth spitting up more gas and the mushrooming of that black oil that stank of so much death.  Brock sucked in more air because he had to, his lungs sharp with stabbing pains.  His shins, knees, and back delivered the ache of pulled muscles and overworked joints.  He had no choice but to keep going for Hannah's sake.  Brock fought the pain.

The road was clear of any victims until they found the lone truck parked in the middle of the road with the shape of a person laying in the road ahead of the vehicle.  He noted the congealed blood circle on the road, though it took longer to notice it with the sky growing darker as night was closer to falling.  Glass fragments were mixed in the red.  He was confused by the drags in the blood, as if many tiny fingers had dragged themselves for yards until they faded and disappeared altogether.

The corpse slumped in the driver's side persuaded him to quit being a crime scene investigator.  Seeing the grizzly damage of the inside out man, Brock moved on in repulsion.  Brock sought the other body on the ground.

James had eyed the corpse longer in the car longer than Brock did.  "Jesus."

"What do you think it means?"

"I'm not sure, but by his wounds, looking at his face and the outward punctures in his throat and chest, I'd say," James stared at his forearm wrapped in the makeshift bandage, "it's what happened to my arm, but to the hundredth power."

"You're saying coins were sucked out of his body?"

Brock watched James pivot his head through the pane-less window, then he looked up at the truck's ceiling.  Curious about what he was doing, Brock stood beside the man, watching James pick out the coins wedged in the ceiling.  He handed Brock a few quarters and dimes, and what James clutched was absorbed into his skin instantly.

James blew a sigh of relief, "You know what that meant?"

"The coins sinking into your skin?"

"Yeah," he said, staring at his empty hand stained in red.  "It means I was damn close to being turned off. I keep forgetting I'm like everybody else."

Brock pulled some coins off of the ceiling and said, "Why don't you take this too?"

"Hold onto it.  If I fall asleep, you can use it on me."  James's eyes were doleful.  "There might come a time when falling asleep won't be such a bad thing, you know, if this visit at Chuck's house doesn't go so well."

"Don't say that."  Brock couldn't imagine surviving this on his own.  "I'm not leaving you behind."

"You say that now, but you're not one of us."

"Hannah could be, and if that's true, then I might as well be in the same predicament because I'm not leaving without her."

Brock decided to stop himself before they got into a more heated argument.  He was exhausted from running, and they still had more ground to cover.  He made it about five yards before he learned the body in the road ahead was Angel.  He rushed to her, then lowered to his knees to get a better look at her.  Brock scanned her body for damage and was grateful she was unharmed beyond her condition of forced sleep.  He dug into his pocket for change in his pocket when James stopped him by seizing his wrist.

"Think about what you're doing."

"I'm saving my sister."

"She tried to trap us in the hotel room.  She can't be trusted."

"She's not herself.  Not only is she on drugs, she's terrified."

"If you want to take your sister out of here, you have to let her rest.  I know it sounds strange, but she'll run from you again.  What if we do find a way out, and you can't find her later on?  This is a big town.  Lots of foothills and places to hide.  We could be killed trying to play search party."

Brock's eyes stayed on Angel's downy white face.  Her pallor seemed to fade by the second.  He paced back and forth, unable to decide what to do.  "Then what do you want me to do, just leave her here?"

James came to his senses.  "Okay, no, we can't leave her.  I wasn't saying that.  I don't know what I'm saying.  I only left my sister behind because she's obviously dead."

"How far are we from the axe guy exactly?"

"Maybe a quarter of a mile."

"Then I'll carry her the rest of the way."

"That's a long ways for you to lug a hundred plus pound body."

"I'm not doing it by myself."

James shook his head.  "Hell no."  He searched the trees, the road, everywhere, trying to produce a better solution.  James saw the answer tipped over between a series of trees.  "It looks like neither of us will have to carry her after all."

"I can't believe I'm doing this."

"Believe it." James marched ahead of Brock.  "Hurry it up.  Why am I the one rushing you this time?"

"Because," Brock stared down at Angel's body piled into a grocery cart, her arms and legs jutting out the top like a lifeless mannequin, "...because my sister's in a fucking shopping cart, that's why."

Brock pushed her forward.  He let the argument go.  This was his sister.  He'd seen her this way before, even worse.  It was strange seeing a woman in her early fifties like this as an adult.  She still didn't have her life together.

You didn't have your life together.

Before you became a panel talent judge, you were in her predicament.  You could've been in a shopping cart with a pair of idiots pushing you around.

I'll get you out of this, Angel.  I'll get Hannah out of this too.

Somehow.

The sky was pitch black.  The woods did nothing but darken the way.  Their only guide was the crunch of loose asphalt under their feet.  The sounds carried by the wind were constants.  Single words were stretched on to be spoken for minutes, matched against hundreds of other words.  They were sweet nothings, divulgences of random details, or statements spoken from scatter-brained madmen.  The words swarmed together, leaving them listening and waiting for something that would happen or wouldn't happen.

"It's not going to stop, is it?"  James called out over the throng of voices.  "We were right earlier when we said something's on the horizon.  The words play on the air, but not for this long.  They might not stop this time."

"It's as if they know we're onto them.  They're trying to scare us."

James shouted with all his lung capacity, "Well, it's working!  I'm fucking scared!"

Brock kept peering down at Angel.  He caught slivers of her pale skin in whatever moonlight filtered down to them.  He kept pushing her along, praying this would convince her he cared about her enough that he deserved a second chance to be her brother.  But now it wasn't about Angel, or James, or Hannah, or himself. The man with the golden axe's home lingered nearby.  James pointed the house out and kept his words hushed.

"I don't know if he's home."

"No lights on."

"Doesn't matter.  I swear that man isn't a human being anymore.  He comes out of nowhere to get you, and when he does, you wake up bloody."

"He'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.

Without 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.

Every 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 another 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 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 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.

THE BASEMENT

He didn't heed the warning.  Brock bypassed James who was leaning against the wall to collect himself.  The basement 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 knob, and it wouldn't come open.  "Shit!"

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 God 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 anticipated 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 fuck out of here."

"That man has the answers we need," Brock said.  "We're not getting far without an explanation.  Didn't you say nobody 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 bullshit."

"This bloodbath proves I'm right.  Wake up, Hannah!" James snapped.  "I've got nothing here except for a bunch of strange shit.  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, nobody'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.

James broke the awkward silence.  "So what now?"

Brock eyed Hannah, reminding himself she was indeed by his side again.  "We wait for him to come home."

WAITING

Not a word was spoken between the three of them during the coming moments.  They each listened, because the voices on the air returned.  Brock considered it ghosts on the wind.  Spirits having open conversations.  They were sharing anecdotes and cheering on the idea of the living becoming the dead.  Click of tongues against the roofs of mouths, the smacking of dry lips, the drag of low vocals preaching, singing, lecturing, warning, and then shrieks and screams and ceremonious chanting continued in spastic, random cycles.  What changed was the noises traveling through the woods.  The clanging of metal happened every few minutes, like the jingling of an enormous penny purse.  The items were banging, clashing, and scraping together so hard he imagined they drew sparks upon their collisions.  Brock wondered if this was happening everywhere in Blue Hills.  Then he prayed Angel was safe out there, regretting that he had to hide her body outside, though he knew he had no choice.  Hannah bunched up closer to him, deriving any comfort she could steal from him.  James was spaced out, his eyes focused on the head of the stairs, ready to aim the nail gun and fire when the need arose.  Nothing happened for several hours until the noises of metal and the dead ceased once again.

That's when Chuck Durnham arrived home.

* * *

Many things happened quickly.  Brock suffered stuttered versions of events that occurred in those three minutes.  They rushed upstairs to intercept the axe man.  The man clutched his golden axe in the living room as if he knew they were already there.  He tossed the axe like a hatchet, the gold weapon spinning and swooshing through the air.  The blunt end smacked James right in the face, the man spilling backwards down the basement stairs with blood mushrooming out of his nose.  In reflex, James fired the nail gun once with a hermetic poot of air.  That's when the pain exploded in Brock's foot.  A nail was driven into his big toe.  He pulled back his foot, losing his shoe, tripping into the hallway, but somehow managing to stand right back up in front of Hannah to awkwardly to defend her.

"Stay away from us," Brock challenged, raising the sledgehammer at Chuck.  "You either tell us what we want to know, or I bash your skull in with this."

Chuck's eyes studied them.  The man was so pale, weakly looking, but he towered above them so strong, so confident.  He didn't speak.  That's another thing Brock noticed about him the few times they'd encountered one another.  He was a drone, as if waiting for the next instructions from someone else.

Hannah whispered to him, "What's he waiting for?"

"Don't be too upset he's not doing anything," Brock muttered, tightening his grip on the sledgehammer.  "He's still dangerous, even without his axe."

Chuck's neck popped, turning his head at them.  And that's when Brock followed his eyes to the bottom of the stairs.

The man wanted his axe back.

Brock was startled when the man charged down the stairs, but to get to the stairs, he had to barrel through Brock.  The man sent an upper-cut into Brock's abdomen.  The blow knocked him off of his feet and sent him down the stairs, rolling hard down each step.  Hannah was screaming.  Brock was dizzy, taking in the pain until he landed on the floor near James downstairs.  Blinking stars out of his eyes, he woke to a bad situation.

White glinting against gold, the axe head caught the dull amber light from the workshop of corpses.  Chuck was already down the stairs.  He bent down to grab the axe and clutched it in both hands.  It was impossible to do anything except beg for his life, though even that was performed poorly.

"Just leave us alone!"

Seconds passed, and Brock wasn't bleeding or on his way to being dead.  That's because Hannah had jumped on Chuck's back.  Tangled together, she was thrown forward over his shoulders, the backs of her shoes striking the ceiling as she was forced into a front flip. She struck the floor back-first, inches from where Brock lay.

Crawling forward, and Brock having no clue why he was doing this, his defense mechanism buried under layers of fear, exhaustion, and starved senses.  It was then Brock located the hammer.  He threw it ahead of him, and it struck home.  Chuck growled and cursed, his giant arms covering his face as his nose gushed blood.  He staggered back two steps, absorbing the pain.

Brock was confused by what came out of the man's mouth in surprisingly clarity and dread.  "Why am I feeling this?  Why am I feeling pain again?"

Brock's vision was slowly returning.  He was barely standing, his limbs shaking to hold himself up.  He imagined himself ramming his upper body into Chuck to knock him down and gain the upper hand when he was cut off by the noises:

Poot!  Poot!  Poot!

Chuck was thrown up against the wall, and then he swiftly fell to the ground.  The attacker issued pained gasps and audibly gulped in large breaths of air.  The main stayed on the ground weeping.

James kept the gun extended to take another shot if the axe man dared to make another move.  "Stay where you are."

Brock stole the axe.  He was ready to interrogate him, but he checked on Hannah first.  She was clutching her side and the back of her head, watching him intently through her agonized features, somehow saying with her eyes, "I'll be okay later, just not right now."

When Brock regarded Chuck, the man's face was human again.  It was bent in a sadness so deep Brock wanted to turn away and leave him alone.  Instead, Brock studied the man's wounds.  There were two nails in his chest and one dead-on in the middle of his clavicle bone.  He was immobilized and maybe dying.

It was that moment he spoke to Brock.  "I bleed my own blood.  It used to be black.  It was their blood.  It was the stuff coming out of the ground, but now I'm bleeding my own blood again.  I don't understand it."

Brock noted the black gel that was in puddles on the ground, what had initially spilled out of him at first.  But what was oozing from him now was red.  The black puddle on the floor stank of decay long pent-up in the ground and finally released on the open air.

"You must listen," Chuck wheezed, choking on his own blood and letting it run down both sides of his mouth.  "Caaaaagh, I won't live much longer.  Please, listen hard.  Come closer."

James was right behind him.

Brock knelt closer, letting the man speak his peace.

"They filled me with the black to give me strength and knowledge.  It was all to do their bidding.  The dead promised me I'd have my family back if I did what I was supposed to do."  He took a pause, living down another shot of agony.  The voices of the dead played on the air again, circling overhead outside like spiritual vultures.  "I-I can hear my wife and my child speak to me, but it's not them.  They're evil like the rest of the dead.  They lied to me.  My family helped convince me to do the dead's bidding.  And I'll be like them when I die.  I'll be miserable.  I'll hate everything and everybody like they now do.  I'll be pure evil."

Brock was confused.  "Tell us what's happening.  Why is everyone killing each other for money?  Why do we shut down without money in our bodies?"

Chuck cast a resigned look, knowing he had caused this terrible scenario.  "It's very hard to explain.  T-there are so many people dead and buried in the ground.  So many restless bodies in the earth are trapped in their coffins.  Billions and billions of restless dead corpses wither in the ground.  They want their ambitions to be realized.  Think about how many people have died in our history of existence.  Think about how many premature deaths have occurred.  How many times brilliance was cut down before its time.  Imagine those killed in the womb before having a chance at life.  Soldiers cut down in the fields of battle.  Those cheated of their life's ambitions.  Those who'd cheated themselves out of their own ambitions.  Death is permanent, but their ideas," he coughed up a wad of thick blood, then said more insistently, "dead men's ideas never die.  They live on, and now they're alive.  They're jilted, turned hideous by the darkness of death.  This won't be the first place this will happen, and it surely won't be the last.  The ground spits out the dead's ideas and ambitions and brings them to fruition.  The earth is ripe with possibilities.  And one man's ambition has taken over Blue Hills, in particular.  His name is Tim Hawker."

James gasped, taken by surprised.  "Tim Hawker.  He died like fifteen years ago.  I remember him.  He was my friend.  Why would he do this?  He was a friendly person."

Brock listened harder, waving down James so the man could continue his explanation.

"I-it is possible," Chuck coughed.  "Consider this.  The dead hold onto their ideas, millions and billions of monads.  Have you ever heard of monads?"

Brock vaguely had an idea of what monads were.  "It's a philosophy thing.  It's bullshit.  Floating ideas, right?  Invisible ideas float around that have yet to be discovered."

"Some-something like that, sort of.  Ideas are in the air, except with the dead, they're under our feet.  The soil is compacted with ideas from what the dead held in when they were sent to the grave.  The earth can't hold them back anymore.  Whether fully realized, failed, or something that has never left their minds, the ideas are coming up to the surface, and it's caused what's been happening around us to be possible.  My God, they're so powerful.  But the problem is the dead have rotted in their graves.  Their harmless ambitions and dreams have been warped by coffin rot.  Their minds are masses of putrid jellies and worms.  What could've been good for the world has been rendered into something diabolically evil.  Tim Hawker's ideas have been jilted and turned to the extreme."

"What were Tim's ideas?" Brock asked, fearing Chuck wouldn't survive to finish his explanation.  "Come on, Chuck, we want to end this.  Tell us everything you know."

"Tim died with an obsession with coin-operated machines.  He imagined what it would be like if people were like those machines.  He was obsessed with the old mechanical museums too.  His great uncle owned one when he was a child, and he worked there as a teenager."

James said, "Yeah, yeah, Tim loved mechanical museums.  It makes sense.  But why would he do this to people?"

"The man drew up pictures of people as coin-operated machines.  The man was growing soft in the head in his old age.  He was growing old, suffering Alzheimer's, and he constantly viewed the world and the people in it as coin-operated machines.  I guess it was a way for an old man to re-live the better part of his life."

Brock was puzzled. "So the guy dies, and he kept imagining the world as a big coin-operated machine, and now that there are too many dead people in the ground, their ideas are becoming real.  Is that what I'm supposed to believe?"

"Ye-es," Chuck managed through a wince.  "It's far fetched, but look at what's around you and try to explain it away.  The problem, other dead people are competing for their ideas to become real too.  Tim Hawker's ideas won't last much longer.  This place is about to be turned upside down.  You'll see.  You must escape before that happens.  The coins are almost all in one place.  Soon, the final event will be taking place.  I've seen their great event when the black of their bodies was running through my veins.  I've had visions. I know what's going to happen.  It'll be a spectacle."

Hannah asked, "Is there anything we can do to save ourselves?"

"You're not getting out until you fix what I've installed.  If you look around, you'll see boxes of metal components, steel boxes, and springs.  They just appeared in my work space after the black oil took my wife and child from me.  I used these pieces to install coin-operated machines inside people.  You see, the mist in the air, it's all their essence.  They have their way with things.  They can change your body to fit their ambitions.  Anything's possible here, even if it's against reality."

Chuck pointed on the floor at the power drill.  "Quick, before they lock that up.  Didn't you notice how you could fire that nail gun without having to put another coin into first?  They wanted me dead.  They have no more use for me.  They almost have all the coins and money in town, and if you don't hurry, they'll take what's inside of you, and you'll...you'll be dead if they do that.  The coins will explode out of you.  Tear you up from the inside out.  The coins are all going to a hole in Tim Hawker's house.  The coins are being collected.  They've been saving them up.  And they're going to be used very soon."

Brock picked up the power drill and hurried back to Chuck.  "Then what do I do to save these two?"

Chuck's eyes were rolling in the back of his head, "You drag your finger along each shoulder blade and feel for the bolt.  You remove the screws, and doing that, you remove the coin-operated device.  You have your own body again.  It's, it's that simple."

Chuck was fading fast.  His coughs were turning into compressed belches of air.  "Feel for the bolts...free yourself...and get the hell out of this town before it all happens..."

The man breathed one final time, and he then he mouthed, "I pray I see my family again as they once were...I'm sorry for what I've done."

TIM HAWKER

Willy's skull throbbed.  He touched a bruise on the back of his head.  It was caked in dried blood.  He stared up at the ceiling still seeing double vision.  It required him to blink, shut, hold, and blink his eyes again to regain his sight.  Willy got up to his feet with an "Ahhhgawd."  Standing, he noticed every coin-operated machine in the room was turned off.  The basement was quiet, giving his head a chance to calm.  Willy rubbed his eyes and his neck, and in that time, Willy made an easy decision.

I'm getting the hell out of here.

Willy launched up the stairs, though staggering backwards when he felt dizzy again.  He clutched the handrail and gradually made it to the top again.  The door was closed.  He knew there was no other way out except through this door.

He twisted the knob.

Locked.

"Come on!"  Willy punched the wood and then drilled his shoulder into the barrier.  He kept twisting and turning the knob.  "Come on!  Come on!  Come on!"

Willy felt his blood pressure rise.  He was suckered in.  He went right along with his uncle's plan.  He followed the coins downstairs.  He did this without questioning anything.

What's your next move, smart guy?

The room stirred.  One of the mechanical machine's lights were flashing.  It was a dull red color.  He was scared, but standing there, he wondered if something or someone was going to come after him.  Willy decided to speak before this could occur.

"Look, I don't want trouble.  If that's you Uncle Tim, you have to know why I'm a bit scared—"

There was a deep released sigh.  It sounded just like his uncle when he was about to say something he didn't want to say.  It bought the man more time to really articulate his words.

"Walk back down here, Willy/so we can talk/just me and you/nothing will disturb us/it's just you and me, Chuckles."

Another sound at the backmost wall of the basement happened.  It sounded like rocks being scraped by other rocks.  The noise was so out of place and continuous, Willy shot back down the stairs to check it out.  The scraping, scratching noises kept occurring.  A thin window, what was actually a window well, allowed him to view outside.  He couldn't fit through the window, the shaft being too thin for even a small child to slip through.  The slit, however, was big enough for him to view what was happening outside.

The backyard was a wide open space with no fences or trees.  The grass was disturbed as coins, dollar bills, and jewelry was drawn up to the house, as if something were sucking it in.  Willy saw the collection of things dragging along on the nearby road, cutting through stands of trees, sluicing through a pond and breaking the water to reach the house.

The scratching of the coins circulated throughout the basement, echoing off the walls, the floor, the depths of the foundation.  Money was coming to the house, and the house seemed to be sucking it in like the very coin-operated machines.

"Come here and see me, Willy."

Willy had no choice but to turn and answer the summons.  This battle was a lonely one, and if he didn't reach out to a familiar person, the person who invited him here, he'd keep sinking in questions.

When most people died, the ones who survived them remembered the deceased in their best of days.  For Willy, that was Uncle Tim.  The man was a father figure when his real parents fell out of his life.  Tim was in his early seventies, with hair as silver as the refraction of a mirror.  His eyes were green and welcoming, fun-loving, and inquisitive.  Tim retired as a structural engineer and became a full-time hobbyist.  His hobby made him a God to any young child looking for fun.  Tim traveled, sent for through the mail, and acquired mechanical machines of every variety.  He wanted to open up a mechanical museum free of charge to the public, but that was before the place was burned down, and of course, his untimely death.

What Willy walked up to wasn't how he remembered his uncle.  Uncle Tim was a machine version of his former self.  The cherry oak box stood chest high in the shape of a coo coo clock.  Steel plated the front with etchings of naked women with their bodies outstretched to nothing, their fingertips grazing each other's fingertips.  The top was a glass cage with a head made of wood, lacquered and giving the flesh a polished sheen.  The hair was painted gray and looked as if a knife had cut grooves for the threads.  The eyes were carved hollow, and from within, a red light glowed, giving it a demonic expression.  The face was carved into a smile, the wooden teeth an off-yellow of tobacco and coffee stain.  Tim's voice emanated from a speaker from within the oak cabinet.

"Sit down, Willy/catch up with your uncle."

Willy suddenly remembered how his uncle died again.  Willy was playing in the basement with the machine called "The Lover Tester."  He kept squeezing the steel grip to make the gauge jump from "Wimp" to anything higher.  If only the gauge would bob past "Wimp," Willy would be satisfied.  He just couldn't beat the machine no matter how hard he tried.  His uncle left the house after his German Shepherd, Daisy, had escaped from the fence.  That's when he heard a crash from the upstairs window, then another crash from the kitchen and living room.  The smell of smoke and burning soon followed.  Willy didn't think anything of it.  By the time the smoke was too thick to breathe, his uncle had seen the house burning and ran to the basement to save his nephew.  Tim carried him up the stairs, but when the stairs broke from underfoot, Willy somehow made it to the upstairs level.  Tim didn't.  The man was caught in a billowing pool of flames.  The last he saw of his uncle was his outstretched arms that were soon engulfed in black smoke and fiery orange hands.

Now his uncle was a wooden head in a box.

He was just like one of his cherished machines.

Willy wanted to run back up the stairs and force the door open.  This wasn't real.  This wasn't his uncle.  The longer he stared at the wooden face, he noticed flecks of black stained the glass.  Tears of black edged out of his uncle's eyes and wormed out his gums between the fake wood teeth.  It was the same black that boiled up from the ground, and he knew it because of the smell, that stench of infernal death from the blackest and deepest depths.  The very abyss.

"W-what's happened to you?" was all Willy managed to say when his feet didn't work.  Willy couldn't move, suspended in a state of shock.

The wooden head was inanimate, unable to blink or move its mouth.  The small speaker inside the box was the only form of communication his uncle owned.  The tinny, scratchy words were the best the dead man could produce.

"Death isn't the end of ambition/enough people have died and been buried in the earth over so many centuries/they're strong enough now that their ambitions can live on/the things they loved, their ideas, their regrets, the dead can finally address them from beyond/so many rot in the earth/our ambitions rise up from the earth in black/I give you my greatest achievement/my collection of machines!"

Willy wasn't sure what to make of the string of statements, though it made his belly rage with butterflies.  His uncle's voice was amped up with an energy unknown to his previous existence.  It was jilted, projecting with a power he didn't own, machine meets old fashioned record player, meets pure evil.

He didn't care for an explanation as much as why Willy was brought here to this house.  Why had so many people died?  Why was he delivered here to the house?  Did his uncle concoct the reading of the will to bring him here?  Willy asked these questions at throat splitting levels and got this in response:

"I can't expect you to understand everything, Willy/life is so simple, but death is complex/being dead used to mean nothing/now it means everything/I died remembering the happiest times of my life/they were of you and me and these machines/I can lose myself in them, and you could too/I loved you like my son, and that's why you're here/I'm sharing my greatest achievement with someone who could appreciate it/but something holds us back, Willy, from enjoying this blessing right this moment/being dead didn't just involve remembering my happiest moments/I burned to death/I'm burned saving you, and I'm proud my death wasn't in vain/life is precious nonetheless, but death is a finer reality/for killing me, punishments must be doled out/justice will be served/and I'll show you just what I mean."

The basement door shot open.  He couldn't see the staircase from his angle, but Willy could hear numerous footsteps coming down the staircase.

Somebody was coming down to join them.

FREE THEM

"Feel for the bolts," Brock repeated under his breath, clutching the power drill in his hands.  He noted the steel slot over the drill's trigger.  "Damn it, we need change."  And that's when the steel slot snapped off by itself and four coins jangled to the ground.  Spinning and rolling, the coins flew across the room, tearing through the wall.  Brock ducked, dodging other coins as each of the power tools in the workshop were disturbed, jostled on their posts and somehow unlocked and their coins flying across the room.  One coin shot past catching Brock in the back of the leg so fast it inflicted a cut across his calf muscle.  Hannah caught a dime that caused the cartilage in her ear to split at the tip.  The fuselage of change shot through the living room door and out the walls like bullets.

When the din ended, James stared at them astounded.  "What did Chuck mean get out of here before it happens.  What else is going to happen?"

Brock said, "Whatever's at Tim Hawker's house, it's collecting all the money in town."

"That doesn't answer anything," James griped.  "It's nonsense."

Brock thought back to what Chuck was saying about freeing them from the machine inside them.  "I have to get the machine out of you."  He turned to Hannah, wondering how she felt about the crazy idea.  "Let me feel your shoulder blades."

"You're not coming anywhere near me with that power drill.  I love you, but come on!"

Brock leveled with her, "You said you saw Chuck work on bodies.  He'd cut them up.  He'd install things in people's backs."  Brock kicked at the boxes strewn about the room stuffed with metal bits, steel boxes, and springs.  "Just let me feel for the bolts in your shoulder blades.  Humor me that far.  You want out of here alive, don't you?"

James stepped up to Brock when he head the voices of the dead rekindled on the night air accompanied by random jangles of change cutting through trees, the earth, crashing and clanging together at impossible speeds.  "I'll go first.  I don't care.  I've lost my family, what else can I lose that isn't already gone?"

"Your life," Brock said.

"At this point, life and death are monads nobody will ever fucking understand.  I always hated that philosophical bullshit."

"I'm not sure what the hell I'm doing," Brock said, testing the power drill, and the bit spun, roaring to life.  "This machine works without change.  I don't know what that means."

"So what else is new?"  James lifted up his shirt and turned around.  Brock ran his fingers along the man's shoulder blades.

"Your hands are cold."

It slipped out of him, "Shut up."

Dead center of the bone on the shoulder blade, there was a metal indentation.  He felt a large screw and the corresponding groves for the drill bit to fit in.  "It's there all right."

Hannah was watching Brock nervously.

James asked, "You stopped feeling around.  What is it?"

"A steel bump."  Saying this, Brock shied from the thought of delving the drill bit into his back.  "What if I hurt you, James?"

"Soon enough, I'll be dead by something one way or another, and if this works, that means you save your favorite lady and your sister too.  It's worth it to me to see some good come out of this situation.  The people I love are dead."

"Angel's still out there," Brock said, once again feeling bad he had to leave her body outside.  "I hope she's okay.  Maybe I should go get her."

"Don't waste anymore time.  I have a feeling we don't have much time until the next thing happens out there."

The voices on the air continued, though they were everywhere, circulating from the sky and resounding from the ground and mixing together.

Brock took a deep breath and placed the drill bit on James's shoulder blade.  He fidgeted the end so it matched the bolt.  The tip finally sunk into the skin a few centimeters, locking in.  James placed his arms on each side of the wall.  "Okay," he said, gathering courage.  "Just do it.  I asked for it."

"Be careful."  Hannah was so close to Brock now.

"Brace yourself."  Brock focused harder to keep his wrist and arm steady.  "Here goes."

He pressed the trigger.

Hannah closed her eyes and turned her head.

James screeched in pain.  "Faaaawwck!"

The drill bit carved a circle of skin.  Blood flicked up from the shoulder blade.  The crunching of bone, the screw underneath was gradually lifting out.  The skin around the screw was expanding with the look of taught canvas about to break.

"Hurry, Brock," Hannah demanded, unable to take the jarring noise of the drill.  "He's bleeding all over.  You're hurting him."

"Steady hands win the day," Brock assured her.  "Steady hands."

The bolt came undone with a pop of a cap gun.  The screw was four inches long.  Brock held it in his hands and showed it to James.  "Wow.  That was inside of you."

"Whatever else is inside of me, I want it out of me.  Keep doing what you're doing."

Brock scanned James's other shoulder blade, and pinpointing the location of another screw, he placed the bit against the screw head beneath the skin.  When Brock started the drill, a cold hand seized his neck and spiked him to the ground.

UNDER ATTACK

"Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"  James's howled, then his screeches abruptly ended.  Hannah's terrified, blood-curdling peals of terror followed Brock to the ground as he was pelted by sheets of blood.  An arm, a leg, a head, a torso, every appendage from James's body smacked into Brock.  The man's extremities were spring-ejected from James's body, the stumps made of sprung steel coils.  Out James's back, a black box was ejected. The top opened up like a wall safe and coins jangled free onto the floor.  The money was drawn up the stairs, sailing in the air and then fired right through the ceiling.

"Brock! Watch out, watch out, watch out!" Hannah kept warning him, her body bent against the far end of the wall terrified.  "Don't let the coins hit you!"

Brock was replaying James's dismantling again in his mind.  He realized whatever had grabbed him from behind had caused the screw to shift the wrong way.  The mechanical system in James's body reacted accordingly and dismantled the man.

What was worse was who had tossed him to the ground.

Angel.

Her eyes were catatonic and empty of thought and function.  The way she moved was like a living puppet.  She was compelled by another master.

"Why are you doing this?"  Hannah demanded Angel.  She helped Brock to his feet as they both cowered to the opposite end of the room away from the enemy.  "Stay away from us."

Before Hannah could completely guide him to the door in the hallway, Brock reclaimed the power drill.  "Angel, it's us.  Don't you remember me?  I'm your brother."

Brock pointed at her hair, hands, and clothes in horror.  Black oil stained them.  The colors of death had seeped into her skin.  It stained her lips and eyes.  "It's like Chuck said earlier. The dead were controlling him, and now they're controlling Angel."

They backed into the other door in the basement that didn't lead upstairs.  Brock urged Hannah inside and then threw it shut.  Brock locked it behind him.  "I have to remove the box out of your back."

"But you saw what happened to James."

"Yes, I know, but it only failed because I was disturbed.  The screws can't be jostled as they're coming out.  You said you've seen Chuck at work, and that's what happened when he screws up.  The people's body parts fall to pieces."

"But you don't know what you're doing.  How do you know any of that is right?"

Before Brock could argue his point, out from Hannah's shoulder blade shot out a dime.  It fired straight out across the room, nearly hitting Brock dead on.  It burst through the ceiling, suddenly heading to its own destination.

The pain staggered Hannah to the floor.  Brock bent down and lifted up her shirt.  "We don't have a choice.  We have to get this box out of you, or those coins are coming out of you like bullets."

Hannah griped in pain, mincing curses under her breath.  "Fucking do it then."

Brock traced his hands along her shoulder blade and located the bolt.  Gearing up to remove it, the door was split by a golden axe from the other side.  The axe head gleamed momentarily before it was jerked back and disappeared back to the other side.  Hannah wouldn't stay still, so Brock whispered to her, "I love you.  You have to stay calm.  I'm not leaving you here.  I will get you out of here alive.  Just hang on."

The words lightened her distress, though Hannah was still shivering in fear.  Anticipation had its way with her body.  She exploded in a fit of curses when a quarter shot out of the sole of her shoe, the coin levitating, then spinning from side-to-side, before it fired up into the ceiling.

Brock pinned his free hand on her back, centering Hannah.  He began to work, doing his best to block out his lover's screams.   Splitting skin and scraping bone, the first bolt was edging upwards.

The axe struck again, claiming a narrow triangle of wood from the door that was slowly turning into cheap cardstock against the force of the tool.

Blood spilling down her back, the bolt came loose and tinged against the floor, rolling into the heaping pile of corpse pieces spread all across the room.

Brock located the other bolt.

Three more strikes, the axe broke a square-panel.  Brock could see Angel's vacant face at work in his peripheral vision.  Both her hands were raising the axe to plunder the door into smithereens.

"Braaaaaaaaaaaawck!"  Angel howled when a quarter shot out of her forearm and her hamstring simultaneously.  "Hurry before another coin shoots out of me!"

Hannah was squirming, abating her pain so much so that Brock was having difficulty keeping the drill bit straight.

"You can't fidget.  I know it hurts.  You have to hold still."

"You don't know shit.  You don't have this box inside of you!  You're not bleeding!"

"Okay, I don't know shit.  Fair enough.  Now stay still."

The axe struck again.  The door frame was almost half gone.  One more swing, and Angel could reach around and open the door from the other side.

Brock repeated himself, shouting above his lungs, "I don't know shit, but you're staying still or you'll end up like James!"

Pressing down hard on her back, Brock began removing the screw.  Inches up from the bone, the axe shattered another long sliver of the door.  Angel's hand reached through it, twisting the doorknob.  Angel jerked the door open.  Brock kept at work, staying still, staying calm, and unshaken.  Angel was standing above him now, raising the axe up high.  Moments from taking the swing, Brock almost had the bolt free.  He couldn't keep his eyes off Hannah's back if he was going to finish this.  Any moment, Angel would be bringing down the axe over his head.

Throwing aside the final screw that came loose, Brock dropped the drill and kicked out his legs, tripping up Angel who fell backwards. She lost the axe, and Brock suddenly had an idea.  Reclaiming the power drill, he spun Angel onto her back and pressed his knees up against her back.

"Hannah, help me hold her down!  Hannah, are you okay?  Say something."

Hannah didn't respond.  Her body remained on the floor unmoving.  He couldn't check on Hannah until he was finished with Angel.  His sister could pick up that axe again and take a killing swing if he didn't do this first.

"Hannah, wake up!  Are you alive?  Please be alive!"

Lifting up Angel's shirt, Brock tested for the screw on her shoulder blade and drove the drill head into her back.  Knees anchoring her down, his one arm pinning her still, he went to work, praying under his breath that Hannah was okay and that this too would work on his sister.

"Hannah, please answer me!"

Legs cramping, his arms losing their strength, and terrified Hannah didn't survive the crude surgery, that she died because of his mistake, that she died like James did, he tried his best to finish Angel as fast as he could.

A lamp in the corner shattered.

Angel bled from her deltoid.  A long slender opening like a gummy fish mouth bled.

The coins are coming out of her too.

Hurry!

Brock was cut on the side of the neck by a flying dime, the equivalent of shaving at twenty-five miles an hour.  Brock stiffened, his face shrinking in pain as he began working out the second screw.

"Hannah, I love you," he said, afraid she was dying and he wasn't saying anything to her.  Brock had no choice but to save Angel, or else the coins firing out of her would not only kill her but kill him too.  "If you're awake, answer me."

Nothing.

Lifting up the screw, the last jerk of the power drill, the bolt came free.  Brock was thrown backwards into the wall from what burst out of Angel.

NOT ANYWHERE CLOSE TO SAFE

Black blood burst everywhere.  It covered him and the dead bodies littering the floor.  All of the liquid was spewing out of Angel's back.  After the tide was finished, Angel was left a pale, flaccid thing bunched up in the corner of the room.  Hannah had her face to the ground and remained non-reactive.  Before Brock could process the events, the room began sizzling and stinking of burning hair and flesh.  The deep down decay of the oldest corpses in history.  The end result was a room filled up with yellow fog.  The dead corpses in the room began to dissolve, and in the end, they turned into the same black mephitic mess he had witnessed during this whole ordeal.  The walls began to corrode, the wood giving to the black's heat.

Brock lifted Hannah to her feet.  She was roused awake.  "Uhhhhhhhh."

"We have to get moving.  Can you walk?"

Hannah clutched her head.  "Y-eah, I think so."

Angel had a long pink scar going down her back in the shape of a box.  His plan had worked.  The box itself, made of steel, had been cast across the room, purged from her body.

Hannah double-timed it once she caught the black oil oozing up the walls, eating through them, and still devouring the dead bodies into red, purple, and yellow paste.  Overhead, chunks of the ceiling came down, bringing with them sizzling pieces of wood and paneling.

"Get out of here! I'm carrying Angel.  Don't turn back, Hannah.  I want you out of here!"

Brock urged Hannah towards the hall where she had to overstep Chuck Durnham's corpse.  She turned back to Brock, not wanting to leave him behind.

Brock shouted, "Just go! I'm right behind you."

He shot towards the other side of the room, dodging puddles of boiling, frothy black.  Brock scooped up Angel, carrying her over his shoulder like a fireman would a victim in distress.  Hoisting her up, he muttered, "You were always a dainty little thing, and thank God you are!"

Half the room was missing, it being a boiling pot of death.  Brock weaved and shuffled, nervous at how the ceiling kept creaking and breaking randomly.  Wallpaper was eaten through, the room so boiling hot.  It stank of infernal death, what kept clinging to him and filling every breath he struggled to take in.  The dead spoke, but one dead voice carried over the rest, and it was James's.

"Run/get out!/Escape before it's too late!"

Other dead voices overpowered James's words.  "You'll escape and find yourself facing a worse death/a far worse fate/you will die a horrible merciless end/boiling to death will sound like nothing when you face the end when it does come!"

Lunging through the door and staggering into the hallway, his back and knees aching, Brock swore he wouldn't do a lick of physical work ever again in his life if he survived this terrible ordeal.  Rushing towards the stairs, he was stopped by a perilous, yet belittled voice.  It was Chuck, turning up his head ever so slightly and saying one last thing before dying, "The big event's going to happen very soon/very soon/the big show is about to begin."

Brock charged up the steps.  He was determined not to end up as Chuck.  He could hear the axe man be broken down by the boiling oil sledge that engulfed him.

The stairs collapsed one at a time.  Each one he stepped on broke moments after he treaded across it.  Brock blew out a grateful breath of air when he saw Hannah stand in the doorway upstairs.  She was holding the way out open.  Hannah reached out to pull him through, and he collapsed onto the front yard, unable to lug Angel's body an inch further.

Brock took in the words of the angry dead playing in the sky.

Hannah helped him carry Angel as far away from the house as possible.  They both held an arm over Angel's shoulders, carrying her like a wounded solider.  Without speaking, they looked behind them as they moved and caught the house's roof collapse.  Every window shattered one-by-one.  The walls came next, then the very foundation was swallowed whole by the black oil that burned so hot they could feel its intensity against their backs.

Working back towards the woods, they kept on moving.  Brock said, "Chuck said one last thing before I escaped the house.  He said the big event is happening soon.  Whatever that means, I don't want to be around for it."

Angel coughed and whinnied in pain.  She was struck by a wicked jolt of agony.  She slipped from their grips, landing on all fours, and stared up at them in terror.  "Whu-what's happened?  Why am I here?  Why are you here?"

"Listen, Angel, I removed the mechanical device inside of you, and don't ask how.  There's no time.  You don't need coins in you to live anymore."

Hannah helped her up to her feet, and they began running as fast as they could.

"Where are we going?"  Angel managed to speak out-of-breath.  "What's going to happen now."

Brock did his best to describe the situation, everything Chuck explained to them as he was dying.  Then he said, "We're getting the fuck out of this town."

Angel pointed up the road. "Up ahead in the road, it's not too far!  The bridge out of Blue Hill isn't far at all."

They were about to run when they noticed what was happening around them.

The woods began to move.

PUNISHMENT

Willy kept his distance from the foot of the staircase and the box containing the wooden head of his uncle.  While footsteps kept coming down the stairs, the mechanical machines started working again; their lights flashing, their mechanisms working on their own.  Voices of the dead, the hushed, the accusing, the vile cursing, the berating, the amused kept cycling and recycling.  The words, the voices, they were worked up.  Their energies doubled.  What they had to say was much more important now.  The walls leaked black oil.  The oil kicked up steam as the black clotted rivulets of foulness sweated down the walls.  The reek of death was pungent to the nose, yet the sight of the people walking into the room from the staircase was much worse to take in.

There were fourteen individuals who walked down the steps one at a time like automatons.  Their legs and arms were stiff the way they couldn't bend very much.  Their faces were clenched as if fighting a force that was making them walk.  Their eyes were wide and ghastly, their mouths crying out to Willy for help.

"Don't let this happen to us, save us, we're sorry, we're so sorry, they won't let go of us, I can't feel my body, I'm not moving my body, dear God, don't just look at us, do something, do something to save us, he's going to kill us, he's sick, he's crazy!"

Uncle Tim's box projected garbled rage through the tinny speaker, "YOU KILLED ME!  I AM NOT CRAZY!  I AM NOT CRAAAAAZY!"

The floors were boiling with pools of the abysmal liquid.  The room was thick with yellow death fog.  The machine's lights were murky through the reek.  Laughter and voices of the dead seemed to rejoice louder and louder, their decibel level near eardrum bursting.  Willy cupped his hands to his ears, yet Willy could somehow hear his uncle's words project from the box.

"Each of these people were responsible for my death/they wanted my property for the city interstate project/I refused to sell, and they hired some goons to burn my place down/these people had their helping hand in my demise/I burned to death/the flames ate my body for fifteen agonizing minutes before I perished/death will make them pay/death has given the dead the power to see their dreams and ambitions come true/ENJOY THE SHOW, WILLY!"

Willy watched, afraid to take a step in one direction or the other.  The black oil was a half inch pool on the floor.  The tide neared his feet.  Willy caught swirls of reds, greens, and flesh tones within the black.  Watching the oil, hearing his uncle rant, and seeing the mechanical machines work, he truly believed this was all the work of the dead.

There was nothing Willy could do to stop it.

Those fourteen people suddenly shifted stiffly, their bodies working independently of themselves, as if their bodies were made of screws and mechanical joints.  They were like the machines, and what he witnessed next proved that theory correct.

The rattling against the house occurred in all the upstairs rooms, through the walls, even the windows (which shattered one by one), and the roof.  Through the basement ceiling, the wood splintered and down rained hundreds and hundreds of coins.  The coins were drawn towards the people who were hobbling and resisting their own bodies, but losing the battle as they were each forced to stand in front of a mechanical machine.

"Oh God no!"

"Noooooooo!"

"You're breaking my bones!"

"I can't control my body!"

"Why are you doing this to us?"

"I'm in ag-ony!"

"Gaaaaaaaaaaawd!"

Willy winced as the sounds of bones breaking increased.  Wrists snapped.  Shoulders were dislocated.  Necks cricked.  Legs were twisted backwards.  Faces were wrought in agony as coins pierced into their bodies right through the skin, but they didn't bleed.  They weren't damaged.  They were compelled.

One of them grabbed the "Shock Meter" with both hands.  The machine was overcome with coins and cash, the money flying in all directions as it kept raining down from the ceiling and getting sucked into the machine.  As more coins entered it, the steel grips crackled with electricity, and soon, the woman holding it shrieked until bits of her skin fluttered in the air as sizzling burning meat, then into ashes, as she burned into a crisp black skeleton in less than ten seconds.  The corpse toppled backwards, the crispy exterior flaking to nothing to reveal the steel box hidden in her back.

An older man punched the speed bag on the mechanical machine, and when he did, his own face imploded as if hit by a brick thrown at the speed of light.  His head was thrown off of his shoulders, the brain disassembling itself mid-air and striking the wall as splatter.  Willy could only guess that how hard the old man punched the bag ended up coming back to his own head with triple the force.  The shotgun for the "Duck Hunt" game was in a middle aged woman's hands.  She pulled the trigger and out the back of her head shot out bloody quarters, dimes, and pennies.  Two men who looked like brothers were being attacked by the tiny figurine clowns at the circus who'd escaped their box.  Lions were chewing out their throats, while clowns were setting their clothes on fire.  The figurines of the audience whooped and hollered as the two victims met their horrible demise.  Madame Rousseau spoke in her box, the harsh female voice of the bayou making predictions for the older woman in her eighties, specifically how the woman would strangle herself to death.  The older woman did indeed strangle herself with her own hands, but the woman's fingers pressed so hard they broke skin and threaded through muscle until she twisted her own head off.  When the head struck the floor, coins, jewelry, and money overflowed out the neck's stump, out her eye sockets, and ear holes.

The other victims were dying, and Willy knew he couldn't save them, but he could save others outside the house from further harm.  Whatever powers compelled his uncle to do these things, the man wasn't sane. Willy did the only thing he could think to do in that moment, standing in the room of dying people.  Willy gripped the wooden tower containing his uncle's head by two hands and threw it down as hard as he could.

"Willy/NOOOOOOOOO!"

The glass around Uncle Tim's head shattered.  The head rolled out, instantly melting in the oil.  The wood parted to show off gears and pulleys and steel mechanisms at work.  Flames shot out of Tim's wooden head, and then it sank in the oil that kept rising higher and higher from the ground.  The rest of the room became victim to the heat.  The mechanical machines and the remains of the victims sank into the black mess, instantly engulfed and then vanishing as if they'd never existed at all.

Willy rushed the stairs, only to tip forward and land on top of them in his haste.  His ankles had melted into the black.  Flames rose up from beneath the stairs, cooking him in moments.  While his flesh was scorched, Willy finally understood what powers possessed his uncle.  Death had its way with his uncle's imagination.  What ideas, hopes, and dreams were stored in the man's heart and soul were taken by the dark forces of the afterlife.  Enough dead people had been committed to the earth that they had gained a certain power and freedom to make their ideas real.

As Willy watched the flesh from his fingers turn to blackened and cooked bone, he also learned something else.  Death wanted to play games with the living.  His suffering was their pleasure.  His sorrow their celebration.  Death had fooled his uncle into playing their game of human suffering.  Now they were done with his uncle, as death was finished with Willy.

The spirits of the dead now had greater ideas and ambitions to exploit.

The fire weakened the stairs.  Willy crashed through them just like his uncle did all those years ago and burned alive in a scorching blaze of burning black tar.

The voices floating about the room rejoiced.

Willy's voice joined the throngs of the dead.

NEAR THE END

Angel was the first to reach the truck in the road.  She screamed, backing up from the driver's side door.  Brock remembered her boyfriend was in the seat, and how his body had been pulped by coins.  He eased Angel aside, though firmly, sensing movement about them in the woods.  The sounds of the dead were at a deafening roar, the words emanating millions of voices strong.  Brock lugged out the flaccid corpse, the poor bastard's sticky blood covering his hands.  Brock placed him on the street.

Hannah had grabbed Angel by the arm and lead her to the other side of the truck.  Brock moved to the driver's side, the keys still in the ignition.  He was so grateful there wasn't a steel slot covering the ignition that he cried out in joy, but nobody could hear him over the din of the dead.

Turning the keys, the truck started right up.  Brock checked to make sure everybody was inside.  Angel and Hannah's face was turned in terrified frowns, eying the blood, overwhelmed and horrified that they had to sit in it.  He too was covered in congealed blood.

He flipped on the headlights to reduce the darkness.  After driving a half of a mile, it became apparent what they were hearing that was so loud.  In the road, coins, money, jewelry, all of it was magnetized to a house down in the woods.  The coins and jewelry clanged together, kicking up wild sparks.  They could see the house where the change was drawn to.  The roof, the shingles, every inch of the ranch style house was chocked full of holes, as if an entire fleet of M-60 guns had been unloaded into it from all angles.  And the decimation continued.  Wooden boards were see-through to the point walls collapsed as the storm of money continued to filter inside.  The sight was confusing as it was an inspiration to step on the gas that much harder.

Angel kept watching in the rearview mirror, and when the money storm calmed and went silent, she turned her eyes from it until a great explosion rocked the earth so strong it almost sent the truck off the road.

"Look!"  Brock turned to his side mirror and watched the house literally explode, everything firing up miles high.  There was no fire, no smoke, only coins spreading across the sky, each individual piece sucked towards something nearby, each coin going their own direction.

"What the hell is happening?"  Hannah kept mouthing to herself.  "It doesn't make any sense at all."

Brock couldn't instill comfort in either of them, he himself trembling.  It's what Chuck had warned them about.  The next big thing.  The ideas of the dead were battling to come to fruition, and Tim Hawker's idea was about to conclude with a big ass bang.

"Keep your eyes open," Brock shouted.  "Something's happening very soon!"

The first indication things were coming to a head was the black oil billowing up from pockets of the ground everywhere, as if ghosts had struck their payload, the black crude issuing with geyser ferocity, spitting up head-high and gushing continuously.

"Drive faster!"  Angel demanded, lowering in her seat and scared to death.

Hannah hugged Angel, and Angel returned the gesture, both of them stealing what comfort they could from each other.

That left Brock alone to face the chaos.

Driving on, new events began to transpire.  The trees, the road, and in the farther distance, the houses in the residential area, the cars, the windows, the roofs, even the corpses, formed new steel slots somewhere on them.  Coin-operated devices, he thought, that's what they were, like machines in a mechanical museum.

Brock heard the rumble in the air, and then the voices on the air stopped.

Then it began to rain.

THE GRAND FINALE

It wasn't raining water when the sky grumbled.  Flashes of copper and nickel came down.  They were sucked into the coin slots that were located on inanimate objects.  The slots devoured the coins.  Escaping the woods and driving into the residential areas, they watched the corpses in the street who'd taken in the coins jerk to life.  This time, they were rotting, their eyes sunken into their bodies, their muscles atrophied and their arms and legs moving at a sluggish pace against rigor mortis.  Black oil oozed from their bodies as if they could burst open with the black stuff at any moment.  Trees renewed by money stiffened in every yard, the wood bending and creaking as their root systems broke dirt and the branches came to life, swinging and batting at the truck, denting the driver's side door, and Brock cried out as one of the tips of the branches sliced across his cheek through the shattered window.

Slamming down on the gas, Brock overcame the living tree that chased after him in the rearview mirror.  "Goddamn! Did you see that?  Did you see that?"

Before the two in the back seat answered him, they were staring out ahead of them as every tree in every yard broke free of the earth.  Pockets of the road suddenly turned into potholes, each coin going into a random steel slot causing the street to dent or implode in parts.

Brock became a stunt driver, weaving, turning, slowing down, speeding up, twisting the wheel left and right, guiding them through the deadly concourse to avoid a flat tire, or worse, one of the trees reaching into the car again.

Watching in gaping eyed fascination through the rearview and side mirrors, Brock caught a series of horrid scenes.  They weren't the only ones who'd survived and were holding onto life.  Many people racing out of their houses and screaming for help were terrorized.  A local man was running out of his backyard with a bevy of tools hovering after him, namely shovels, axes, a hammer, hundreds of nails, and a pitchfork.  Suddenly all the items surged forward with insane speed, cutting right through him like a corer through an apple.

Another woman, an older lady, was trying to work her way through an open window, but it had come down on her back, slamming into her spine again and again and again.  The sound of breaking vertebra was accompanied by blood spilling out of her mouth until she fell limp in place, dead.

A boy and his father were cornered by five trees, the trees being living animated things.  The trees tipped over one-by-one, going timber, and crushing them.

A garden hose was strangling a teenager in his backyard.  The pressure so tight, the boy's eyes were bulbous and insect-big.  The teenager's girlfriend was screaming in panic as power cables snapped from their posts and wrapped around her up like a mummy's body.  Then the lines constricted, tightened, and she was squeezed to death.  Blood and flesh and fat were rendered between the lines of cable in coagulated pudding.

Inside his house, a man was being stalked by his kitchen appliances, namely a blender and juicer.  The kitchen table banged its body towards him and pinned him into a corner as the blender pureed his left hand and the juicer sliced up his other hand until all he had was bleeding pulp stumps.

An open window displayed a man trying to help his wife out of bed when the ceiling fan broke free of its molding.  The blades were spinning so fast, it sliced off their heads and shot them out the window across the street and into another person's yard.

The fireplaces in many of the houses turned into blazing ovens.  They spewed arcs of fire and turned the havens into thousand degree pressure cookers.  Brock gawked at the dozens of people whose skin boiled from their bodies, popping like grease, until all that was left of them was fleshless and meatless bones.

Gas ovens burst against the open flames, raising a series of houses, shooting debris up to the heavens. Cars were driving by themselves, disappearing down roads after the others who'd survived, their lights blinking and flashing erratically.  Flowers danced back and forth in their pots on porches, swaying to an unknown song.  Blades of grass shifted to the beat of the same unknown song.  Birds by the hundreds hovered about the sky like a dark cloud, pirouetting and spinning in tandem as if synchronized.  Window shutters clapped closed and swung open over and over again.  Houses dismantled themselves piece by piece and put themselves back together in minute intervals.  The squares of the concrete sidewalk raised themselves up straight like dominos and fell down one by one in a strange show.

Brock forced himself from the trance-inducing scene once those that had recently died got back up and were chasing after them, though slowed by their broken bodies.  Black oil oozed from the pores of their skin.  The pursuers were accompanied by trees, vehicles, and random sharp implements.

Everything was out to kill them.

"They're gaining on us!"  Hannah shouted, staring at the schoolyard with living playground equipment.  The swings moved back and forth, occupied by invisible people.  A baseball bat floated and took a swing as a invisible pitcher threw out a baseball.  The bat swung, smacking the ball into left field.  Catchers mitts floated after the hit.  Kick balls, basketballs, and jump ropes had escaped from the school, spreading out across the blacktop area, the objects playing a game of their own.

Speeding through the main stretch of town, cars had lined themselves up in a blockade to prevent their escape.

Brock gave a start.  "Shit!"

Hannah panicked. "We have to turn around."

Angel gave a short shrill of a scream.  "No, they're right behind us!"

"Then what the hell do we do?"

Brock gathered courage.  He was determined to escape this damnable place.  Turning the wheel, he drove up on the curb, driving through chairs on a sidewalk cafe.  He escaped around the wall of vehicles.  The cars, worked up that their rouse had failed, backed up and began pursuing them, blaring bright headlights in their wake and honking their horns.

Storefronts smashed open behind them, kitchen implements stabbing at the air after them.  A toy store front spit out living teddy bears and action figures.  Toy tanks shot off tiny rounds from their cannons.  Plastic machine guns were clutched by commandos and military action figures the size of toothpicks, the guns prattling bullets and blue smoke.  They were each demented in how they moved, the plastic alive, flexible, and boasting of killing intentions with the black oil leaking out of their faces.

The street itself began tipping upwards like a bridge being raised. Brock pushed the truck on as hard as it could run, all three of them shouting as they were driving up an incline.  Reaching the end of the incline, they were three stories high.

"Brace yourself!"

Flying through the air, they were coming down fast.  Mid-air, they caught streetlights bend with the ear-aching twist of steel to push them off-kilter, though it ended up helping their landing.  They came back down, hitting the back tires on the street first, then the front ones.  The axles protested and the shocks weren't too happy, Brock figured, but the car kept driving.

Off in the distance, a junkyard was animated with action.  Machines smashed vehicles in their death-grip jaws as other cars too damaged to be serviceable crawled on, trying to escape the beast that was smashing them to death.  They bled black oil like blood as the junkyard became a steel pit of death.

Up ahead a mile, the bridge out of Blue Hills took shape.

"Drive faster, Brock!"  Hannah begged him.  "Hit the gas!"

Angel kept staring at the side mirror to watch the trees, the cars, and the floating implements of death stalk them.  The voices of the dead returned once again, enjoying the terror show.  They were cheering on their demise.

Brock ignored everything, even as the trees in the woods began uprooting themselves.  Hawks swooped overhead, encircling them, the coin slots shining in their backs.  Dead corpses were limping towards the bridge, everything and everyone knowing that's where they were going.

Keep driving, he told himself, you can't stop now.

A flying hammer gouged out the back tire, the rims scraping the road and kicking up sparks.  Brock was forced to slow down.  The cars behind them were gaining speed.  Birds pecked at him from the broken window, stabbing his arms with their beaks as he fought them off and continued to keep the wheel straight.  He was struck from behind by a driverless Sedan.  Jolted forward, the wheel shifted in his grip.  Another car narrowly missed striking them, and in doing so, ran itself off the road and into the river below the bridge.

Brock kept pounding the gas.  Accelerating despite the flat back wheel.  Suspended like a net above them were thousands of knives and sharp implements and tools collected from town.  They were poised to rain down on them.  To top things off, the overhead steel beams of the bridge bent like fingers to crush them in its fist.

THE BRIDGE

Brock had closed his eyes to the incoming events, but once the car stopped rolling forward and Hannah shook him, he re-opened his eyes.  They had made it to the last tier of the bridge, except the back-end was being crushed by the bridge.  Angel was kicking at the front windshield with both legs, and Hannah joined in the effort, as did Brock.  The birds, the incoming knives, the living mechanical machine behind them, none if mattered, because they would soon be flattened like trash in a compacter if they didn't escape the front cab.

The windshield cracked in forks, but it wouldn't give.  The doors were wedged closed, partially crushed by the steel beams.  The steel hand tightened, working harder to destroy them inside.  The voices of the dead were garbled, losing their numbers, as if what power they did weld was fading fast.

Bubbling up through the undercarriage and oozing from the vents, the boiling black oil flooded in after them.  After all they survived, Brock thought, this was what would kill them.  Angel was burned on her thigh, and Brock's left arm was covered in spatters that boiled from the vents, each of them screaming out in pain after being touched by the black.  They lifted up their legs, dodging the mess, but it was pooling inside thicker and faster.  The top of the truck was closing in on them too.  The metal hand worked to end their lives.  It wouldn't be long before one or the other would send them to their end.

"Die for us/die forever/you shall see hell and all there in that awaits you/let us hear your screams/suffer in agony/it's my father's fault this is happening/I'm so sorry/die drowning in black/die drowning in the bath of our blackened bodies/I'll save you, Brock, I'll save you all/ wretched hell shall warp your sanity forever/kick through the glass, kick through the glass before it's too late/you can't defeat the dead/we'll try and try again to kill you."

Brock was confused, hearing a voice that wasn't evil.  He realized it was James speaking.  After the words stopped, a thick trail of oil worked up to the glass, spreading across it, and then burning into it, James cried out, "Kick through it now!"

They did so, their heels driving through the weakening glass, and all at once, it shattered. Brock pushed Hannah through, then Angel, and as Brock was working his way through, the metal hand squeezed, sending the entire front cab imploding into itself, crunching like the biggest tin can.  His foot was caught in the warped steel, and he couldn't free it.  Hannah and Angel were pulling him back towards the safe end of the bridge.  Brock shouted, crying out in terror, until his foot finally slipped free.  Landing on the ground, the three of them scooted back from the bridge.

Oil spat out the front of the truck, totally enveloping it in black.  The water rolling beneath the bridge evaporated and went dry in moments.  Seconds later, deep trenches in the earth spread out all across the town of Blue Hills, spouting oil wells of fermented dead bodies.  Skeletons, corpse torsos, human appendages, and innards by the thousands of gallons mixed in the steamy brew that began melting everything they touched.  The boiling black coated the buildings and reduced them to liquid.  Trees batted their limbs as they boiled against the forces of molten hot death.  The birds in the sky went poof into flames.  Every house, street, and paved surface melted into a caramel thick substance, and then they too mixed in the black death oil.  Blue Hills gradually sank into itself until everything was black sledge.  No landmark remained.

The melting began and ended at the bridge line.  Blue Hill's town limits.  Brock watched on in awe and confusion as the oil drained back into the ground, slowly sucked back in by an unknown power, and eventually vanishing altogether.  The earth solidified again.  The foothills sprouted fresh grass, and what used to be a town was now empty woods and mountains.

The town of Blue Hills was gone.

Angel was the first one to speak.  "Where do we go now?"

"What can we do?"  Hannah asked, her eyes still wide from taking in what had happened.  "Try explaining this to a third party."

"I won't be doing that anytime soon."  Brock turned his back on Blue Hills, grateful to have the two people he loved the most with him.  "We go back to our lives.  We can't tell anybody about this because there's no way to prove anything.  The town's really gone.  It's like this place never existed."

Angel turned so her back was facing them.  "Is my back really okay?"

Brock checked it.  Only scar tissue in the shape of a box was leftover.  "Only scars, Angel.  You're okay."  He was saying it for himself as much as everyone else.  "We're okay."

Hannah hugged him, then she rested her head on his shoulder.  Angel did the same, all three of them huddled together.  They began weeping.  All Brock could do was keep repeating, "It's over...it's over...it's really over..."

AFTERMATH

Brock had to ask, "Are you sure this is what you want to do?"

"I had plenty of time to think about it in rehab, Brock.  Yes, this is what I want to do."

Angel was sitting next to him in the terminal of San Diego Airport.  She was ready to visit her childhood friend, Ellen Phillips, in Montana.  After four months of intense rehab and tight-lipped secrecy about Blue Hills, Angel was prepared to move on with her life, and sober.  Her plan was to visit as many people she used to know before they inherited their father's estate, reconnect with what her life used to be, and do it in a drug-free fashion.  Brock wouldn't call Angel completely patched up, but she had the wind back in her sails.

Brock couldn't stop looking at his sister.  She was radiant for the first time in years.  Her natural pallor was healthy and no longer deprived of vitality.  She was no longer a gray toned memory.

They were waiting for Angel's flight to board.  "You keep in touch.  You tell me how Ellen's doing, okay?"

"I will."

Brock touched her hand, softly drawing her attention so they were looking at each other face-to-face.  "I'm serious, Angel.  I don't want to lose touch.  I know you can't forgive me for everything, and I understand that.  I've lost many privileges with you with all the shit we've drowned in, but..."

Angel sighed.  "We both acted like idiots back then.  It's not all your fault, Brock.  We both did things we regret.  We've got to move on from that.  What happened, happened.  I'm not living in the past anymore.  I love you.  Of course I'll keep in touch.  I always will."

Brock hadn't heard her say that genuinely for over two years.  He kissed her forehead.  "I love you too, Sis."

Hannah returned, bringing back a sub sandwich and offering them the first bite.  "I'm sorry to pig out, but I'm starving.  I literally got back in town three hours ago.  I took the first flight back after my movie shoot wrapped."  A somber look touched her face.  "I just had to see you off, Angel.  I'm so proud of you."

"Four months sober," Angel declared.  "You didn't have to catch a last minute flight to see me, though.  I still appreciate it."

"I wouldn't have missed it.  Besides, Dust Devil was finished way ahead of schedule, and the movie's on its way to DVD.  Maybe it'll play at a couple of film festivals, who knows?  A paycheck's a paycheck, isn't that right, talent boy?  So is that girl's choir going to make it to the final round, the ones that can light their farts to the tunes of "The Sound of Music?""

Brock raised his eyebrows.  "You'll have to watch the season finale.  Actually, under contract, I couldn't even tell my mother about the final outcome or I could get sued.  Reality TV, go figure."

The intercom announced Angel's flight was boarding.  They stood up, their time to chat concluding.  Brock held Angel's arm softly and drew her close for a hug.  "Are you okay?  I mean, not okay, but, are you okay enough?"

Angel knew he was referring to Blue Hills.  They had avoided any major discussion about the place.  Brock checked the headlines, the daily news, the Internet, everywhere, and not a word was spoken about the disappearance of an entire town or those who were drawn into its evil.  He checked various state maps, local history, and it was as if Blue Hills and the people who lived there never existed.  Even on the maps he studied, Blue Hills was annexed.  There was no explanation.

"I'm," Angel paused, thinking on it, "processing everything.  I think about that place, yes. It's made me appreciate my life more, and that's the best I can take from it.  What it means beyond that, I don't know."

"You call me soon," Brock said.  "Your birthday's in two months.  We'll celebrate it together.  Deal?"

"Yes, it's a deal."  She smiled big, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes.  "You better bake me a cake."

The line was thinning out for her flight, and Angel waved goodbye, promising they'd keep in touch.  She called out, "I love you, guys" before finally boarding.  Brock stood by Hannah hip-to-hip and absorbed the moment.  So much had passed during the last few months, Hannah's movie wrapping-up, Brock's season finale of "America's Got Flair" was finalized, and now they had nothing better to do than dote on Angel's departure.

It was only a matter of time before Hannah mentioned Blue Hills again.  "I looked on a map of Virginia the other day.  Blue Hills is now called something else, and they're turning it into a tourist trap.  I read something where it said the woods are being cleared.  People are calling it a newly discovered gem.  A great place for a vacation."

Brock asked what had really been on his mind.  "I wonder how long the dead have been under our feet waiting to come back up like they did."

Hannah turned to get a better look at him.  "What do you mean by that, exactly?"

"Was Blue Hills the first place the dead decided to rise up from the ground and live out their deep down fantasies? The world has a long history.  In the ground is where we all go in the end.  Centuries of organic material beneath our feet, and now, their ideas live on.  Blue Hills can't be the only place this has happened."

Hannah guided him from such thoughts by presenting him the turkey and Suisse sandwich.  "Why don't you worry about helping me finish this sandwich instead of talking about such nonsense?  I'm over it.  I'm done.  It's behind us, and I'm happy with that.  Now let's start planning our wedding."

They walked to the airport parking lot, discussing a more pleasant topic, but for Brock, such questions wouldn't leave his mind, nor would their implications become any less of a threat.  The dead underneath their feet outnumbered the living, and their ideas would live on in some form or another.

EPILOGUE

Thank you father, thank you so much for all you've done for us, you sick son-of-a-bitch.

Bickering in his head and taking in the cold of desolate winter, bundled up in his thermal gear, goggles, and the -22 degree winds, Thomas Moorehead worked hard to finish the job he'd set about doing.  It wouldn't be the first time in Dead Horse, Alaska, that he'd dragged a human body through the snow from his Bronco truck and into his house.  The human body wasn't just any corpse, but his long-time friend, David Burrell, a fellow oil-field worker.

The oil fields.  Their paychecks.  Their livelihoods.  None if mattered anymore.  Nothing did except for staying warm.  Thomas strangled David with a length of chain.  They'd been sharing a bottle of whiskey right before Thomas turned on his friend.  Before killing David, they had been brainstorming on how to defeat their impending situation that had escalated since three weeks ago.  But Thomas didn't have the time nor the patience to solve anything except the immediate problem of heat.  The sub-zero cold could freeze them to their core and send them to an icy grave in no time if he didn't react fast enough.

Thomas had a five year-old girl named Naomi and a wife named Melinda who depended on him to bring him food, supplies, and the means to survive in the normal world, and in this terrible situation, nothing had changed.

Survival came first.

The oils wells stopped pumping three weeks ago.  Every machine in town stopped functioning altogether, leaving the town of Dead Horse in a blanket of black.  No electricity.  No heat.  Their vehicles wouldn't function without the new commodity.

If it weren't for you, you dead bastard, none of this would be happening.  I wouldn't have killed my best friend for a night of heat.

Goddamn you, Father.

The door to their house flew open.  His wife came out to grab David's arm and pull his corpse inside.  She was shivering, freezing cold inside their home, wearing her thermal gear, and looking like a distressed Eskimo whose Igloo entrance was slowly sealing shut with ice.

"Is he really dead?" she asked morosely.

Thomas nodded, not wanting to speak of it.  He'd already murdered his neighbors on both sides of him, a police trooper, a handful of his co-workers, and his sister.

-22 degrees would make anyone do these things, he thought, forcing himself to continue on with the arduous task of preparing David's body.

Naomi, his daughter, stayed hidden behind the couch.  The poor girl refused to look at them, so scared.  Thomas didn't want her to see what her parents did to the bodies in the basement.  If they survived this ordeal, he wanted it so Naomi would be clueless as to why they had heat and the rest of the town was becoming a permafrost tomb.

Thomas's father was a visionary before he passed away from liver cancer.  His death was an agonizing and prolonged event.  His dream was to create a new way to heat homes without oil or the wasting of resources.  The man had half-cocked notions of using corn and a cleaner version of ethanol to pull the trick off, but the man couldn't live long enough to see his concepts into reality.  But in death, the man's vision continued, and that vision was a reality in the town of Dead Horse.

Husband and wife worked together to haul David's corpse down the basement stairs.  Once there, they stripped David naked.

The voices of the dead rang out as chilling as the subzero winds.  The voices whispered, taunted, and derided them.

"Warm yourselves/live another day/burn your candle down to the wicks to find ways of surviving/suffer to live/let the cold inspire you/save yourselves from death and let him burn burn burn/forever burn for the dead. "

Thomas ignored the voices, hearing his fellow co-workers at the oil fields and even his father's voice mix in with the others.  He was alive, and they were dead, and he'd do anything to survive another day, including burning his best friend as fuel in the basement furnace until the man was a pile of ashes.  The smell of burning flesh was forever engrained in the walls of their home.

They would live another day, no matter what the sacrifice, Thomas was determined, even if it meant turning on the ones he loved to avoid the deadly, unforgiving sub-zero chill.  The furnace would burn precious heat until there were no more bodies left to burn but his own.

You Have Survived Coin-Operated Machines