Winn racked his brain. I could surprise them, rush them. Maybe try to talk to them. I’d have to drop out of the River to do that, or they’ll attack me.
He saw one of the ghosts leave the room, passing back through the crack in the far end of the chamber. Another followed, and then another. Soon there were only one or two ghosts remaining with the Caller.
Now? Winn wondered. Drop out and walk in, now?
He watched as the Caller rotated Brent’s body, saw Brent’s legs rise and his hair fall away from his scalp.
He’s getting ready to do it, Winn thought. He studied the terrain between himself and where Brent was suspended, trying to memorize every rock and dip in the floor that might cause him to stumble. Then he closed his eyes, dropped out of the River, and felt the blackness wrap him up. He extended his hands in front of him, and began walking the path he’d tried to memorize.
He couldn’t see anything, not even his outstretched arms. He listened, and thought he heard movement, but decided it was the sound of his own feet, shuffling on the ground as he made his way toward where he thought Brent was. He instinctually widened his eyes, trying to let in more light – but there was no light to let in. He desperately wanted to drop back into the River so he could see his way, but he knew that would be a death sentence, so he resisted the urge and kept walking.
I should be there by now, he thought, but I don’t feel anything. Maybe they moved Brent!
He took another step, and felt his hand brush something. He reached again, and recognized Brent’s stomach. His t-shirt had fallen down. He was still inverted, hanging in the air.
Winn fumbled with Brent’s pockets, searching for the coin. He couldn’t find it in any of them, and wondered if maybe it had fallen out, as Brent had been turned upside down. He dropped to the floor of the cave and ran his fingers over the dirt and rocks to see if he could find it.
Then he heard the praying, and he raised his head to the sound of the voice. It was the same ghost he’d seen on their first visit – Father Kino, praying in Spanish. He was about fifteen feet away. His voice was earnest and pleading, and the faint glow of his image cast just enough light in the room for Winn to see the feet of the Caller standing right next to him. He looked up, and saw its face, staring down.
He kept moving his hands on the surface of the cave floor, searching for the coin. Perhaps it fell and rolled, he thought. He began widening the area of his search, moving a couple of feet from the Caller. Padre Kino was wrapping up, closing out his prayer for safety and healing. The faint light cast by his image began to dwindle.
But not before the nickel caught the light just right, reflecting a quick sparkle to Winn’s eye. He lowered himself to the spot, reached out, and felt the coin in his fingers. Then he slowly stood, feeling Brent’s suspended body next to him. He could see the Caller’s face on the other side. He was holding a knife.
Just grab Brent’s body and run! Winn thought, imagining that Brent would stay suspended and he could drag him through the air and out of the tunnel easily. If he surprised them with the move, maybe they’d be too shocked to chase him.
He held the coin in his right hand. He placed it between his finger and thumb, and felt its power start to pass through him. It definitely had not expired in the way he thought it might.
His hands were sweating, and he worried the coin might slip from his fingers. He rubbed his left hand on the front of his trousers to dry it off. When he did, he felt an impression from something in his pocket.
The stone. The stone Marty gave me!
He slipped his hand into his pocket and removed the stone. Marty had said it was like a flash bomb – it would stun the ghosts for a while. He could throw it on the ground, grab Brent, and run. Maybe the surprise of the flash bomb would give him enough time to get out of the cave.
The last of Padre Kino faded from view, and in the final moments of sight Winn saw the blade of the Caller move. If I’m going to do it, I have to do it now, Winn thought, the wave of pleasure from the coin still rising within him.
He slipped the coin into his right pocket and transferred Marty’s stone to his right hand. Marty said to enter the River and throw it, he thought. If I enter the River, they’ll see me. They’ll know I’m here, and they’ll change from ghosts to zombighosts. I’ll have to enter the flow, throw the stone, drop back out, grab Brent, and go. As fast as I possibly can.
He girded himself and slipped into the River. Immediately he saw the remaining ghosts in the room. There were seven, moving around the place where Father Kino had prayed. He turned and saw the Caller, who had moved his blade to Brent’s throat.
Winn raised his arm, ready to throw the stone to the floor with as much force as he could summon. When he turned back, he saw the ghosts in the room had detected him, and he watched as they one by one transformed into angry, screaming freaks – racing for him with outstretched, clawed hands.
He closed his eyes and brought his arm down just as the wave of pleasure from the coin reached its zenith. There was a bright flash of light, which Winn witnessed through his closed eyelids. Once the flash subsided, he tried to open his eyes so he could grab Brent and make his escape, but he felt himself collapsing and the heavy hand of unconsciousness pressing down on his face. He was briefly aware of Brent’s body collapsing next to him, landing on his legs.
No! he thought, as he sunk further and further. No!
He was out.
▪ ▪ ▪
Winn woke, and the same panic he’d felt in his throat when he blacked out returned, causing him to sit upright. He opened his eyes, and saw nothing. Disoriented, he dropped into the River.
Ghosts, lying everywhere. Not moving.
They’re knocked out, he thought. Marty’s stone worked!
He turned to his right, and saw the Caller asleep on the floor. The knife had fallen from his hand. Next to him was a dark lump. Brent.
Winn dropped from the River and reached over to Brent. He placed his hand on his chest to see if he was breathing, and he felt a slow rise and fall.
Thank god, he thought.
He took Brent by the shoulders and began to shake him.
“Brent!” he whispered loudly, trying to lower his face to Brent’s ear. “Wake up, Brent!”
He kept shaking his friend as he felt Brent’s muscles begin to take over, trying to twist out of his hold.
“Wha..?” Brent said.
“Shh,” Winn whispered in his ear, feeling Brent’s body begin to tense underneath him. “Don’t speak loudly. It’s dangerous.”
“Why is it dark?” Brent whispered to him. “Where am I? Is that you, Winn?”
“It’s me,” Winn whispered back. “We’re in the cave, but we’re surrounded by…” he stopped. I need to keep this simple, Winn thought, and not confuse him. “…creatures. They’re asleep, and we need to make our way out of here before they wake up. Can you follow me?”
“How’d we get in here?” Brent asked.
“Later,” Winn said. “I’ll tell you later. First we have to get out without waking them up. Let’s stand up.”
Winn placed his feet under himself and stood, feeling Brent do the same. Brent reached out in the dark and grabbed Winn by the shirt. “Don’t ditch me!” he whispered.
“Follow me, and be quiet!” Winn said. He took a step in the direction of the tunnel. He decided to drop into the River for a moment to get his bearings one more time, and to make sure they avoided the ghosts.
As his eyes opened to the images in the flow, he felt panic rising in his chest once again. A couple of the ghosts in the room were recovering from the knockout effect of Marty’s stone. As he looked at one, he saw it turn to face him, and its face turned to a scowl.
“We gotta run, Brent!” Winn said. “They’re awake!”
Winn bolted for the tunnel, Brent right behind him. Winn could feel Brent slowing him down, unsure of where he was walking and being led. He tried to speed up, and felt Brent’s hand slip from his shirt.
<
br /> “Winn!” Brent called.
“Run to the sound of my voice!” Winn called back. “You’ve got to run, Brent! They’re coming!”
Winn checked the tunnel in the River, making sure of his path. He turned to look back at Brent, who was blindly groping with his arms outstretched, running toward him. Behind Brent he could see three figures, rapidly approaching. They had completely turned from ghosts into corporeal creatures, and when they saw Winn in the River, they screeched and accelerated.
“Come on, Brent! Run!” Winn said, dropping from the River and grabbing Brent’s hand. He pulled him forward much more rapidly that he’d been stumbling, and Brent fell to the ground.
“Get up!” Winn cried. “We’ve got to get out of here!” he pulled Brent forward even as his friend was trying to stand, prepared to drag him from the cave if necessary.
As they ran to the cave’s entrance, Winn could see light coming in from outside, and it confused him. Moonlight? he wondered. He threw himself down and under the depression in the entrance, and then climbed out of the two foot hole. The light from the sun stung his eyes. He turned to look back into the opening.
Brent’s arms appeared as his body entered the depression and he reached up toward Winn. Brent’s face recoiled at the sunlight, but he called to Winn.
“Help, I’m stuck!” Brent said.
Winn reached down, grabbing one of Brent’s hands, and pulled. The lower half of Brent’s body remained hidden behind the depression.
“There’s nothing to get stuck on!” Winn yelled at his friend, pulling him as hard as he could. “Come on!”
“No, something’s holding my leg,” Brent said. “It’s…”
Winn watched as Brent’s eyes widened and his mouth opened to form a scream. His whole body began to shake. Brent clawed at the ground with his other arm, digging into the dirt of the hole, trying to gain traction and pull himself the rest of the way out of the cave, but his hand just slid on the dirt.
“Help me!” Brent screamed.
Winn reached into the depression and grabbed for Brent’s other hand. He pulled back with all of his strength. Brent’s body was lifted off the ground. Something on the other end had him, and wasn’t letting go.
Brent let out a high-pitched scream at the top of his lungs, and Winn felt every hair stand up on the back of his neck. Something horrible was happening to his friend, something he couldn’t see inside the tunnel.
He pulled Brent’s arms, struggling to not fall into the hole himself. His back began to ache, but he kept pulling. Brent’s screams intensified. Winn felt a surge of adrenaline, and he tugged. This time Brent lurched forward a few inches. Now Winn could see Brent’s knees. They didn’t look good.
He tugged again, gaining another two inches. As Brent’s calves came into view, he knew they were in serious trouble. Brent’s pants were shredded, and he could see long strips of flesh had been removed. Fresh blood was flowing, dripping onto the ground. Seeing the blood caused Winn to pull again, desperate to extricate his friend. Brent screamed as he pulled, and the rest of Brent’s body emerged into the hole. Brent’s feet looked red and white; Winn realized they were just blood and bone. The flesh had been stripped away.
He pulled Brent from the hole, afraid the zombighosts of the cave would follow them, but they didn’t emerge. He dropped into the River for a moment and heard them screeching just beyond the depression of the rock – unwilling to come out into the light. He dropped out of the flow and looked at Brent’s legs. He was stunned – he’d never seen such gore. He felt like vomiting.
Instead, his body was pumping adrenaline, and he wondered how to get Brent out of the canyon. He tried lifting Brent and carrying him. Brent was sobbing in his arms, and his eyes looked as if his mind was far away. He ran as fast as he could, trying to keep steady and not drop Brent as he maneuvered through the rocks. He was able to make it about a hundred yards before his arms gave out. When he stopped and laid Brent down on the ground, he looked back, and saw the trail of blood they were leaving.
He bent down to examine Brent’s wounds again, and saw more fresh blood oozing out of his calves below the knee, where the majority of the damage had occurred. I’ve got to get him help quickly, or he’s going to lose too much blood, Winn thought.
He pulled his friend’s arms up and over his back, and once he had Brent raised off the ground, he began running again. Occasionally Brent would slide down his back a little, and Winn would stop and pull him back up, and then continue racing out of the canyon. He was able to keep this going for longer than he’d been able to carry Brent in his arms, and soon he was at the mouth of the canyon, at the tree where he’d parked his bike.
He sat Brent down next to the tree and propped him up against its trunk.
“I’m going to ride my bike back to the trailer court and get some help,” Winn said.
“Wait!” Brent said. Winn paused. Brent was getting his first look at the condition of his legs. “Don’t leave me here. Please don’t leave me here like this!”
“I can’t take you on my bike!” Winn said. “It’ll be a lot faster if I race back and get help! If I carry you, you’re going to lose too much blood!”
Brent began to cry, looking at his legs. “Don’t ditch me!” he said, pleading. “Don’t leave me here!”
“Here, take this,” Winn said, pressing the nickel back into Brent’s palm. “Keep the pain down. I’ll be right back!” Winn mounted his bike. He pressed down on the pedal, and felt the dirt kick up behind him as his tires gained traction on the desert floor.
“Please don’t go!” he heard Brent call, but he knew he had to get help. Brent was in shock, and didn’t understand how important it was that they get people who could help on their way. Brent’s cries for him to return began to fade as he made his way through the desert, swerving around the dry stream beds and cacti.
It was a good fifteen minute bike ride under normal conditions. Winn raced as fast as his bike and his legs would allow, knowing that every minute mattered.
He saw Marty’s trailer in the distance, the edge of the trailer park. He doubled his efforts. His legs felt like they were on fire, but he kept pumping, determined to go faster.
The sun was already beating down, well above the horizon. We must have been asleep in that cave for hours, Winn thought. Marty’s stone was more powerful than he realized.
Once he swerved into the trailer park, he let his bike hit the ground and he leapt off it, running to Marty’s trailer door. He pounded on it, not waiting for Marty to answer. “Marty!” he yelled. “Marty! Open up! It’s an emergency!” He kept pounding on the door until it opened, and he fell inside.
“What’s going on?” Marty asked, standing at the door in his bathrobe.
Winn pulled himself up and stood next to Marty. “Brent’s been hurt. He’s bleeding real bad. We gotta get help.”
“That son of a bitch,” Marty said, walking to his phone. He lifted the receiver from the wall and dialed 911.
“No, not his dad,” Winn said. “Out in the cave. They took him. They ripped up his legs. I had to leave him at the mouth of the canyon so I could ride back here and get help.”
When an operator came on the line to take Marty’s 911 call, he explained they needed emergency services at a spot in the desert. Marty seemed to know the name of the canyon, and he gave the operator more precise directions than Winn knew to relay. He told them to bring vehicles rugged enough to maneuver over desert terrain.
“What happened to him?” Marty asked Winn, placing his hand over the phone.
“Zombighosts tore at him as we were leaving the cave,” Winn said. “They ripped up his legs below the knee. His feet are stripped bare, and he’s bleeding. I gotta go back out there to him.”
“Wait, we’ll go together,” Marty said, and turned back to the phone, explaining the injuries to the operator, and suggesting they might have been caused by a coyote or a mountain lion. He told the operator they were going back out to try and find
the boy, and hung up.
“If we run it, it’ll take too long,” Winn said. “He’s bleeding really bad.”
“We’ll take my Caddy,” Marty said. He disappeared into the back of the trailer, and emerged with two towels and some rope. “Take these,” he said, handing them to Winn. He grabbed his car keys, and they left the trailer.
Marty drove them out of the trailer park and turned north, going down the road until the fencing stopped and he could pull off without bottoming out. Then he began trying to drive the car over the rough desert terrain, avoiding boulders and going gently when it looked as though sharp rocks might take out his tires.
“I should have rode my bike back out to him,” Winn said. “This is taking too long.”
“We need a way to haul him out, if we can,” Marty said. “Hopefully the authorities will get there and bring better vehicles, like a jeep.”
“A jeep could get him out of there?” Winn asked.
“Oh yeah,” Marty said. “It would make it past these boulders no problem, much faster than we’re going.”
“I wish we had a jeep.”
“But if they’re slow to come, we’ll take him in my car.”
“What’s the rope for?” Winn asked. “And the towels?”
“We’ll use the rope to tie up his leg above the wound and try to stop the bleeding.”
“Oh,” Winn said.
“It’s called a tourniquet,” Marty added. “And we’ll use the towels to put pressure on the wounds.”
Winn suddenly felt sick. With all of Marty’s talk about bleeding, it suddenly dawned on him that Brent might not be alive when they reached him.
Marty brought the car to a stop. “It’s that tree, over there, right?” he asked Winn, pointing.
“Yes,” Winn said. “That’s it.” There were birds circling over the tree.
“I can’t take the car any further without blowing a tire,” Marty said, opening his door. “Grab those things and let’s hoof it!”
The Impossible Coin (The Downwinders Book 2) Page 12