A coin shot up from the pile and fired into the steel slot below the door k.n.o.b. Once the money went through, the door came open. The coins shot forward in a mess of jangling and clanging noises. Between the wooden footsteps, the coins rattled down to the bas.e.m.e.nt onto the concrete floor, as if sucked in. What noises w.i.l.l.y heard filter up from the bas.e.m.e.nt had him taking careful and deliberate steps down each stair. w.i.l.l.y clutched the handrail, his ears trained to that familiar chiming, dinging, and ruckus of the mechanical arcade calling out to him. Reds, whites, and blues flashed about the bas.e.m.e.nt, the s.p.a.ce that seemed to stretch on a lot longer than what was physically possible in conjunction with the size of the house. It was that moment he didn't care about reality, nor did he fear for his life anymore. This was his childhood. His favorite and most cherished memories were right here before him. Without realizing it, his pockets were lined with coins until they bulged to near breaking. w.i.l.l.y stepped into the mechanical arcade with eyes filled with intense joy. It was that moment he'd forgotten about who had died, or how he came to be here.

Coins slipped from his fingers into the mechanical slots. Machines surrounded him. Aisles and aisles of them. The head and chest of the mannequin named Madame Trousseau read his fortune within the standing wooden box, her Louisiana bayou drawl heavy as her truncated lines were read with mechanical fervor. "Your future is bright. Your love life with be plentiful. Your pocketbook will overflow with riches. Everything is yours for the taking, w.i.l.l.y."

Within another wooden box that was chest high, a gla.s.s menagerie showed plastic figurines belonging to a circus play out a show. Lions were tamed by daring clowns. Jugglers juggled pins with fake flames attached to the pins, what were orange light bulbs flickering on and off at the tip to mimic fire. A contortionist was bending her feet completely forward, and they were touching her face. Clowns frolicked about the stage as the audience ate their popcorn and smiled with their painted on smiles. Each figurine was hand-crafted, every detail meticulously done by hand. On some of them, the paint had lost its l.u.s.ter over time, though, giving it a vintage look. Sounds of music and laughter were on a looping soundtrack.

w.i.l.l.y was whisked away by the other machines that begged for the change in his pockets. A steel handlebar was on a wooden perch for the customer to squeeze. Above it, 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 bra.s.s k.n.o.bs stuck out of the box console, what the player could use to control how the raggedy man swung the club and whether you got a hole in one. "Love Tester" had red, pink, purple, and blue lights 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. w.i.l.l.y laughed to himself as he bent down to look through the telescope looking box. For a quarter, he could peep on a woman changing in a dressing room. The photos were black and white. The longer he flipped through the images, the dark haired woman removed article after article of clothing without actually showing anything beyond PG-13. Before long, it showed a man in a suit being slapped by the woman by the time he reached the end of his quarter.

More machines! More machines! More machines!

Vintage slot machines displaying Limes, Watermelons, and Cherries were being cranked on their own. The slots spun over and over as change kept spilling out of the trays to overflowing. "Pace's Races" was designed like a pinball machine. He could look down through the gla.s.s and watch a row of jockeys on horses race. The trick was to bet on the winner. There were many gambling wheels among the machines, what were large wheels showing numbers like a roulette table. One quarter bought a spin. Wooden pin ball machines that were over fifty years old stood between many mechanical machines. Gumball machines offered gum for the price of a penny, the gum encased in gla.s.s and steel, looking like it came from a rich garish man's parlor. w.i.l.l.y had counted ten old fashioned cigarette machines. w.i.l.l.y stopped at the Hershey's Candy Bar Dispenser showing a fat man in a black business suit with chocolate smeared on his fat cheeks. Next, w.i.l.l.y ogled the red vending machine sized Coca-Cola machine that showed a Marilyn Monroe like woman posing in a beach dress and nursing a bottle of cola. What looked like a humidor dispensed cigars, the outside of the wood box showing rough looking Cuban men making the cigars at table, the label over the whole thing saying, "Cuba's Finest Stogies."

The room was active with so many machines, w.i.l.l.y suffered a bout of sensory overload. w.i.l.l.y landed on his hands and knees, panting out of breath. He closed his eyes and purples and reds flashed as if someone had taken flash photography at point blank range. The sounds of clicking, buzzing, and automated voices challenging customers for their patronage, it made his head whir with headache. The sensation subsided the second his uncle's voice cut through the noise and said, "Look right in front of you/I know you want to look/if I was you, I'd steal a gander myself."

It was another box with telescope eyes for him to peer into. He did so, curious as to what his uncle's voice was telling him to do.

w.i.l.l.y caught moving pictures again. They were of Jenna, his ex-girlfriend, as an adult. She was dressed in a lace corset. She was untying it knot by knot. Her legs was perched on a bed rail, her face full of s.e.x. Her lips seemed to mouth his name as the photos kept moving faster and faster. So fast, it turned into a moving, seemingly living, image. She removed the corset, showing off her plump b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She felt herself up, then squeezed the tips of her nipples until they were hard. The squeeze caused her to throw her head back in a thrill of pleasure. Her fingers went down to between her legs, and he could hear her moan. The machine vibrated and caused his flesh to tingle and the hairs on his neck to rise.

Something made him remember Jenna was dead.

Jenna was in pieces.

Jenna never posed for these pictures. He shouted in protest, "Jenna is dead!"

w.i.l.l.y cried in horror for a new reason. Jenna's body erupted. Blood doused the bed. When her limbs sprang from their sockets, her peals of pain were jarring. The telescope view shocked his eyes with a low voltage of electricity. w.i.l.l.y was thrown back onto the floor and rendered unconscious.

THE BAs.e.m.e.nT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The steel square glued the door in place.

All he needed was a coin.

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

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

"I can't say. I'm not sure."

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

Hannah immediately fell into his arms.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 sc.r.a.ping 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 s.p.a.ced 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 bas.e.m.e.nt 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 pa.s.sed, 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 bulls.h.i.t. 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 G.o.d, 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 ma.s.ses 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 s.p.a.ce 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 h.e.l.l 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."