The Impossible Coin (The Downwinders Book 2) (14 page)

“There really was blood in your
shoe?” Marty asked. “Or was it a vision of some kind?”

“It was real blood,” Winn said. “I
had to wash it out with real water. It’s not some kind of guilt trip where I’m
inventing all this in my mind, Marty. This shit is really happening to me. That’s
why I came to see you. I’m in trouble. Things really suck.” Winn lowered his
head.

Marty lowered his gaze to the
table and seemed to think about things for a while. Winn worried that Marty
might be convincing himself that Winn was crazy, and he’d find some excuse for
not helping him. When Marty finally looked up, Winn wasn’t sure which way
things were going to go.

“Well,” Marty said with a very
serious look, “there is something we can try. But I want to be sure, first. I
want to see Brent myself. Then we’ll discuss plans.”

“Alright,” Winn said, a little
confused. “How are you going to see Brent, exactly? I can’t predict when he
shows up.”

“If he’s still around, I know
somewhere he’ll show,” Marty said.

“The cave?” Winn asked.

“Oh, god no. The tree.”

Winn looked at Marty. He’d been
out to the tree several times after Brent’s death, but not recently. He had a
love/hate relationship with the tree. He used to go there to remember Brent,
but he stopped when Brent’s presence at the spot became overbearing. He hadn’t
been back since.

“You’re right, Brent will be
there,” Winn said unenthusiastically.

“Let’s go, then,” Marty said.
“Let’s try my car again. I’m not sure yours will make it.”

▪
▪
▪

Winn looked down at the spot where
they found Brent’s body years ago. You couldn’t see the blood anymore, but he
knew the exact spot where Brent’s life had drained out into the desert sand.

Marty sat cross-legged on the
ground under the tree, and he placed his hands on his legs. “I’m going to go
into a trance, Winn. If you want, you can join me.”

Winn sat on the ground next to him
and closed his eyes. He entered the River, and watched as Marty’s trance slowly
formed around him, like a bubble. Once it was fully formed, he saw Marty open
it to him, and he joined him.

Brent was sitting on the ground
under the tree across from them, his closed hands in his lap as though he was
sitting around a campfire, ready to have a chat. Winn saw that his legs were
whole, and it surprised him. Every time he’d seen Brent recently he was
wounded. This whole Brent reminded him of the time before the event, when they
were just friends, playing in the trailer court and in the treehouse.

Brent?
Marty asked.

Brent turned his head to look at
the two of them. He looked relaxed and at ease, his back up against the tree.
He crossed his feet at the ankles. He looked for all the world like a kid who
was taking a break from the desert sun, resting quietly in the shade.

Yes?
Brent said.

I’m here with Winn,
Marty
said.

My murderer,
Brent replied.

Winn gulped. It had been a long
time since he’d thought of himself that way.

He tried to save you,
Marty
said.
Came to the cave to rescue you, and rode his bike to my house so I
could call an ambulance for you.

He left me here to die,
Brent said.
Right here. Right where I’m sitting. There wasn’t any shade in
this spot that morning, not like now. I remember. It kept feeling hotter and
hotter, until I felt like I was going to burn up. Then it got really cold and
it felt so good. Then you two showed up, like now.

That was six years ago,
Marty said.

Really?
Brent replied.
It
seems like yesterday.

You’ve been after Winn, haven’t
you, Brent?
Marty asked.
You’ve been hounding him. Bothering him.
Keeping him up at night.

Well, he used to come see me,
Brent said, looking away.
Then, out of the blue, he stopped. He ditched me. Again.
I hate that, I hate being ditched. If he’s not going to come and see me, I
figure, I’ll go see him.

Is that why you’re doing it?
Marty asked.
Because he stopped coming to see you out here?

That – and, oh yeah, because he
killed me,
Brent said, tossing the object he was holding from hand to hand.

Your death was an accident,
Brent,
Marty said.

Brent turned back to them. Winn
saw Brent’s face change into the face he’d seen the night before. The soft
features of his ten-year-old face morphed, his lips curling as he spoke.

It was no accident!
Brent
snarled, his body lifting a few inches from the ground under the tree. He
rolled onto his stomach and floated toward them like a snake. Winn saw that
Brent’s feet were now bone, stripped of flesh as they were on that morning
years ago. Blood was dripping from his calves as he moved toward them,
sprinkling the sand below.

He left me here to die!
Brent said, his voice deeper and raspier.

After I saved you from the
cave!
Winn shouted. Marty reached over to stop Winn from speaking.

Winn saw Brent’s hands moving
under his body. He extended his right arm toward Winn, shoving something in his
hand just inches from Winn’s face. The coin.

You gave me this!
Brent
hissed at Winn.
Murderer!

He thought it would help you,
Marty said.

It killed me!
Brent said,
turning from Winn to Marty.
And even after that, after I begged him not to
leave me here, he did. I bled out into the dirt, under this tree. Alone. And
after all that, he still ditched me. He would come out here to see me, but then
he stopped. Weeks, months, years out here all by myself, and not once did he
come. Well, I’ve turned the tables on him now. I come to see him.

I’m asking you to stop,
Marty
said.
It’s cruel what you’re doing to him.

It’s cruel what he did to me!
Brent cried.

If he comes out here and visits
you, will you stop?
Marty asked.

I’ll never stop!
Brent
said, a look of fury on his face.
He’d only be doing it so I wouldn’t visit
him, to get me to stop. No real friendship. No remorse for what he did. Only
fear.
Brent turned back to Winn.
I see how you look at me at night, in
your bedroom. You’re scared. You’re afraid. I like that. Now you know what it’s
like to wonder why your best friend is screwing you over. You deserve it. You
murdered me, and then you ditched me. So fuck you, Winn! I’ll never stop. I’ll
never ditch
you
. You can move to the other side of the world and I’ll
still find you!

Marty dropped out of his trance
and grabbed Winn’s shoulder, shaking it. Winn slowly emerged from the River,
watching Marty as he stood up.

“There’s no point in continuing
that conversation,” Marty said. “Come on, let’s go.”

Winn struggled to his feet. “So
we’re giving up?” he asked.

“I didn’t say that,” Marty said,
walking back to the car. “Come on. I saw what I needed to see. We’ll talk in
the car.”

“He had the coin,” Marty said,
slowly maneuvering his car through the desert and back to the dirt path that
led back to the main road.

“He doesn’t,” Winn said. “I took
it from him before the EMTs arrived. I have it at home.”

“And you said it doesn’t work
anymore?” Marty asked.

“No, it hasn’t worked at all, ever
since I took it from him.”

“You’re sure it’s the right coin?
Maybe you took a different nickel?”

“No, it’s the 1950 ‘S’,” Winn
replied. “I’m sure of it. I have it at home in an envelope in my dresser. And
it doesn’t do anything.”

“Then I think we didn’t understand
what it was capable of,” Marty said.

“What do you mean?”

“We knew it could heal, right?
Healed my back. Made Brent feel better, which is why you gave it to him,
remember?”

“Yeah.”

“I think if Brent was using it at
the moment he died,” Marty said, “it amplified what he was feeling. His anger
over being abandoned. It’s made him into one very powerful ghost. He still has
the image of the coin with him – like the ghost of the coin. It’s feeding his
anger, making it worse, making it last.”

“You know,” Winn said, “I was
using the coin when I dropped your flash bombs in the cave. It knocked everyone
out for hours. Maybe…?”

“It amplified the flash bomb,
too!” Marty finished. “That would make sense. You know, I tested that batch
after you told me what had happened, and none of the others knocked ghosts out.
They all lasted just a second or two, like they were designed. Now it makes
sense. In addition to healing, the coin amplifies certain things.”

“So it’s amplifying his anger?”
Winn asked.

“Amplifying and sustaining it,”
Marty said. “Ghosts aren’t known for giving up their obsessions; but they
usually maintain an even keel. In your case, I think Brent will get worse and
worse. I don’t think he’ll ever stop, even if you started visiting him
routinely and trying to calm him down. Whatever power was in that coin, when he
died, it all transferred from the coin to him. And it’s made him a very
powerful entity. He doesn’t know just how powerful. I suspect he could do far
worse things than what he’s done to you, if he decides to ratchet it up. And
the anger in his eyes – whoa, I tell ya, he’s one pissed little kid.”

Marty reached the paved road and
turned the Caddy back towards the trailer park.

“What am I gonna do?” Winn said.
Marty could hear the strain and futility in Winn’s voice. He was close to
giving up.

“Tell you what, I’m in the mood
for a root beer float after all that walking in the desert,” Marty said. “What
do you say we stop at Big Ben’s and I’ll treat us both. And I’ll tell you how
we might solve this.”

Winn agreed, and Marty drove past
the trailer court and further into town until he arrived at the drive-in. He
pulled into an unoccupied spot, and when the waiter rolled up on roller skates,
Marty ordered two root beer floats.

“You want anything else?” Marty
asked.

“A cheeseburger?” Winn asked.

“And a cheeseburger,” told the
waiter. “Hold on – make it two. Two cheeseburgers. And fries.”

“Thanks, Marty,” Winn said.

“When my kids were your age,
they’d get home from school and eat an entire loaf of bread, making sandwiches.
And that was with dinner just a couple of hours away.”

“With football practice I’m eating
more than normal,” Winn said.

“You’re playing football?” Marty
asked, surprised. “What position?”

“Running back. I guess it’s been a
while since I visited,” Winn said. “Sorry about that. Football practice is
long, and then I got the job. So my days are long.”

“Well, I suppose that would keep
you busy,” Marty said. “No wonder you haven’t visited me. Or Brent.”

“I stopped visiting Brent because
it felt creepy. I would go out there and sit, and think about when we were friends.
But I’d always remember the sight of him lying there, and all that blood that
had soaked into the ground. It used to bother me that his blood fed that tree.
Creeped me out. So I went less and less. A couple of years ago, I stopped.”

“And he noticed,” Marty said.
“Which is why you’ve got this problem now.”

“You don’t think I can solve it by
just starting up the visits again?” Winn asked.

“Probably not,” Marty said. “The
power that was in that coin has transformed him a bit. The anger looked very
real to me, and I think at some level he was enjoying tormenting you. I think
he’ll keep it up, regardless. And let’s say I’m wrong, and you visit out there
once a week. What, for the rest of your life? Ghosts have very long lifespans,
Winn.”

“What can I do?” Winn asked.

“Well, like I said, there’s one
thing I can think of,” Marty said. “Someone who used to be a friend of mine, she
had a similar problem, and she was able to clear it up. I’m thinking we go talk
to her, see if she can give us any advice.”

“She
used
to be a friend?”
Winn asked.

“That’s why I wanted to be sure,
before we approached her,” Marty said as the waiter rolled up with a tray. He
attached it to Marty’s window and rolled off. Marty reached out to grab the
burgers and the drinks, passing one of each to Winn. Marty opened his burger
and inspected it – it looked greasier than he normally liked, but he didn’t
mind. He took some napkins and wrapped them around the bottom of the burger to
make sure it didn’t drip on him. Then he took a bite.

“Hey, this is good!” Marty said
through the mouthful he was chewing. He turned to look at Winn and saw Winn
place the last bite of his burger into his mouth, his cheeks bulging.

Marty swallowed. “No way. There is
no way you ate that entire burger while I was unwrapping mine.”

Winn swallowed and smiled broadly,
then opened his mouth to show Marty it was empty. “The whole thing!” he said.
“Can we go see your friend now?”

“Whoa! Let me get a bite or two,
would you?” Marty laughed. “You can’t eat like that when you’re my age, or you
get heartburn.”

“So you were saying?” Winn asked.
“About your friend that used to be your friend?”

“Oh yes, her,” Marty said, taking
another bite and washing it down with the root beer. “After my wife died, she
was all over me. She’s gifted too, and she thought we’d make a great couple.
She imagined us as some kind of power duo. We had worked together on a few
projects before that, but I had never thought of her in any kind of a romantic
way. So when she started to make her moves on me, I resisted, and it pissed her
off. I don’t know if she’ll even take my call.”

“Do you know where she lives?”
Winn asked, finishing off his root beer float. “Maybe we can just go by her
place, surprise her. That way she can’t say no.”

“As much as I hate the idea of
that,” Marty replied, “that might be the only way it works. You may need to be
ready to dodge bricks or other things she might throw at us.”

“God, what did you do? Fight?”
Winn asked.

“Let’s just say it wasn’t an
amicable parting,” Marty replied.

“Great,” Winn said. “I’ve got
Brent pissed at me, and you’ve got this woman.”

“Ida,” Marty said. “Her name is
Ida. She’s a tough cookie.”

“She live around here?” Winn
asked.

“Yes,” Marty replied.

“Well?” Winn asked. “Let’s drop
in.”

Marty sighed.

“You really don’t want to see this
chick again, do you?” Winn asked.

“No, I don’t,” Marty said. “And if
you call her a chick to her face, she’ll freak out, clam up, and kick us out, I
guarantee it.”

“I won’t call her a chick,” Winn
said. “I promise.”

Marty flashed his headlights, and
a waiter arrived to remove the tray from his car window.

“Just promise me,” Marty said,
backing up the car, “that if she starts to get feisty, you won’t egg her on.”

“I promise,” Winn said, wondering
what Marty meant by feisty.

▪
▪
▪

She sat across from them, her legs
pulled up onto the couch. Winn couldn’t help but notice that the lycra pants
she wore fit her like a glove, each and every curve on display. He was
beginning to wonder if something was wrong with Marty – Ida was a knockout. On
top of that, she had been sweet and courteous as she welcomed them into her
home. Marty had prepared him for the worst, but Ida seemed anything but
unfriendly.

“And aren’t you handsome,” she
said to Winn. “Your protégé, Marty?”

“I guess you could say that,”
Marty replied.

“Marty has helped me a lot,” Winn
said. “I don’t know what I would have done without him. My mother has been
useless as far as teaching me anything.”

“Oh, what a thing to say about
your mother,” Ida replied, her brow crinkling into a fake pout. “I’m sure if
she was able to produce such a handsome young man she must know a thing or
two!” She smiled at him, tilting her head down as she did.

She’s flirting with me?
Winn thought.
She’s at least three times my age! Maybe four!

“Ida, you remember that time…”
Marty started.

“Winn, would you like something to
drink?” Ida asked, interrupting Marty.

“No, I’m fine, thank you.”

“So polite. It’s nice when a young
man can be polite and handsome at the same time.”

“Ida,” Marty said, “that time you
went to someone up north, do you…”

“Do you play sports, Winn?” Ida
asked, interrupting Marty again.

“Um,” Winn stammered, a little put
off that she was ignoring Marty. He decided to lie to her, thinking an answer
in the affirmative might violate his promise to Marty to not egg her on. “No. I
don’t. I’m more of a bookworm, to tell you the truth.”

“Oh, that’s a pity,” she said.
“With all those muscles, I thought for sure you were an athlete.”

“Will you leave the boy alone?”
Marty said. “For christ’s sake, Ida!”

“Oh, there’s no harm in admiring
virility, Marty,” Ida replied. “After all, you brought him here.”

“I was hoping you could help me,”
Winn said, wanting to move the ball further down the field than Marty had been
able to. “A friend of mine who passed away years ago is haunting me now, and I
was wondering how to stop it. Marty tells me you’ve had some experience with
that.”

“Marty talked about me?” Ida said,
raising her hand to her chest. “To you? Oh, I thought he’d forgotten all about
me. You know I haven’t heard from him in years. We used to work together, the
best of friends. We were very tight, weren’t we, Marty? So imagine my surprise
when one day he just disappears from my life! Won’t return my calls, won’t
answer his door. So I’m shocked, shocked I tell you, to hear that he’s been
talking about me. I hope he didn’t tell you too much about our salacious past.
Your young ears would probably be scandalized to learn of all the to-doings two
old horny people can get up to.”

“I don’t think he cares to hear
about any of that,” Marty said.

“Probably not,” Ida said, smiling
at Winn, “not a good, moral, virtuous, upstanding youth like Winn here.”

Winn was beginning to blush, and
he finally realized he was in the middle of some kind of altercation between
Marty and Ida. He could tell by the way Marty was sitting that he was extremely
uncomfortable and wished he wasn’t there. As Ida continued to talk, Winn turned
to look at her, and was surprised to see that her nose was beginning to puff
up.

“I trust you’re teaching him the
correct way to handle women,” Ida said to Marty. “It’s best to romance them,
pamper them, shower them with love and attention, especially if you think
someday you’ll need a favor from them. Isn’t that right, Winn? Doesn’t that
just make a whole lot of sense?”

 Winn wanted to respond, but his
eyes were locked on Ida’s nose. It was still enlarging, and he noticed that her
nostrils flared as she talked, like an angry dragon.

“Winn’s case is desperate,” Marty
said. “I was hoping you could tell us how you solved your problem, and we could
see if it might work for Winn here.”

“Well, Winn has been nothing but
polite so far,” Ida said, “so I imagine I’d be willing to help him out. It
wouldn’t be very nice of me to hold your offences over his head, now would it,
Marty?” She turned to Winn. “I assure you, whatever he’s said about me, it’s
not true. I’m not a bitch. Did he say I was?”

Winn tried not to look at her
nose, which was beginning to look like the red, swollen nose of a drunkard. “No
ma’am, he never called you that.”

“What did he tell you?” she asked.
“Did he say nice things about me? Did he tell you how voluptuously soft my
flesh is?”

Winn turned to look at Marty, who
sat stone-faced.
What am I supposed to say?
Winn thought.
Marty said
not to encourage her.

“He told me how kind you were to
people in need,” Winn said.

“Ooo,” she cooed at him, “you’re a
quick little bookworm, aren’t you? Would you like to eat your way through my
apple, little bookworm?”

“Stop teasing him,” Marty said.
“He’s sixteen, for christ’s sake. Jail bait in this state.”

“Fine,” she said, leaning back in
her chair, surrendering. “What do you want?”

“I told you, we just need some
info,” Marty said. “Remember when you cleaned out that apartment building in
Mesa years ago? You thought it was a vampire, but it was a revenant? Couldn’t
get rid of it?”

“I remember,” Ida said, her eyes
half closed as though she was barely listening.

“Well, you did get rid of it,
somehow, remember? Winn has a similar problem. An unusual, powerful ghost won’t
let him go. We’ve got to find a way to get it off his back. I was hoping you
could explain how you managed to solve your problem. Maybe we could follow the
same approach.”