The Massacre Mechanism (The Downwinders Book 5) (13 page)

Winn turned
to walk up the stairs, only half aware of what David had said.

Winn turned
over in bed. He’d been on the brink of sleep for an hour, and his inability to
completely pass out was driving him crazy. He threw off the covers, leaving
only a thin sheet to cover his body, hoping the cooler feeling might help him
drift off.

Then the
flashes began; bright streaks of light behind his eyelids, as though someone
was popping a camera flash at his face. He opened his eyes to see the dark
ceiling of the bedroom and turned his neck. The room was empty; the drapes on
the window were closed. He waited. No flashes.

Slowly he
let his eyelids shut again, and after a few moments the flash returned, jolting
him with its intensity. He felt panic —
is there something wrong with my
brain?
he wondered.
Blinding flashes of light, only happening in my
mind; an aneurysm? Something wrong with my eyes?

The flashes
continued, slowly subsiding until they were no longer bright and debilitating.
As their intensity decreased, the clarity of the message they were carrying
emerged. Winn felt himself relax as he realized he wasn’t ill.

Symbols.
More symbols.

He watched
as they played out in his mind, repeating themselves over and over. At first he
recognized some of them, and thought it might be the same message he’d received
days ago, but as they recurred he realized it was not the same message. It was
something new.

He let the
pattern play out like a song on repeat until he felt he had it down, then he
swung his feet out of bed, feeling them hit a soft rug. He reached for the
light by the bed and flicked it on. In the corner of the room was his backpack,
one of the few things that had survived the trailer explosion by virtue of
having been in his Jeep when the catastrophe struck.

He walked to
it, digging through its pockets until he found a notebook and pen.

OK, Deem,
he thought as he carefully sketched
out each of the ciphers.
What are you trying to tell me now?

▪ ▪ ▪

The sound of
a car engine racing to life pulled him from sleep. Winn picked up his phone
from the bed stand and checked the time: 11 AM. From the loud roar of the car
outside, he knew it was David’s.

He also knew
he wouldn’t be falling back to sleep, so he pulled on some clothes. On the bed
stand was his notebook, left open to the page showing the sketch he made the
night before. He ripped the page out and tucked it into his back pocket, then
he went for the stairs. At the landing he heard gravel crunching under tires as
David’s car left. When he reached the bottom, Carma was coming back inside from
the front porch.

“He’s off?”
Winn asked.

“He wanted
to wake you to say goodbye, but I suggested he let you sleep,” Carma replied.
“I guess it’s just you and me for a while.”

“And Lyman.”

“Want some
coffee?” Carma offered, walking into the kitchen. “I’ll bring us some.”

“I would
love some coffee,” he replied, knowing that at home he’d be hard-pressed to
find the ingredients and he’d wind up picking up a cup at the Texaco station in
Moapa after he left the trailer.

The
trailer,
he thought.
Gone. That whole life, just…gone.

As his mind
drifted from the past to the present, trying to fully wake up, his line of
sight drifted to a shelf where the Antikythera mechanism was resting. He stared
at it, waiting for his brain to kick in and remind him why he felt the need to
use it.

The
drawing in your pocket, stupid,
he thought, leaning over to slip the paper from his jeans
just as Carma returned with two steaming mugs.

“What’s
that?” she asked.

“Another
message,” Winn replied.

“Like the
other one you received in your sleep? From Deem?”

“I think
so.”

“What does
it say?”

“Don’t know
yet. Haven’t translated it.”

He took a
long gulp of the hot coffee and thanked Carma for bringing it, then rose from
his seat and walked to the device. He carefully lifted it, looking at the
gears.

“So Lyman
used this, huh?” he asked.

“I promise
you, there’s no hiding anything from him, not in this house. He’s aware of
anything even remotely powerful. Just after you brought it here, he asked me to
take it down so he could examine it. I didn’t think twice.”

“And it
wound up giving him the key he needed to put his plan into action,” Winn said.

“Apparently
so. How did you use it to translate Deem’s message?”

Winn thought
back to the hot storage unit, trying to remember Daniel’s instructions. They
had used a focus to kick start it to life, but Winn could tell the device was
still alive, still operating from whatever power it had accumulated from its
last use; small wheels and gears inside it were rotating very slowly,
maintaining energy like a pilot light. He carefully reversed the creases in the
paper and laid it flat on the floor in front of them. He placed the mechanism
on top of it but not covering the ciphers, trying to arrange it the same way
he’d seen Daniel do it days before.

“It will
translate them?” Carma asked, watching as Winn sat on the floor next to the
device.

“It figures
out a time differential,” Winn replied. “Then I use it to travel to that
differential, just long enough to try and read it.”

“Oh, my!”
Carma exclaimed, suddenly excited. She dropped to the floor across from him and
sat cross-legged, staring at the mechanism expectantly like a little child.

“It is
moving, isn’t it?” she observed, looking at the gears. “It’s doing something.”

Winn leaned
down to examine the side of the device, watching as the display wheels
continued to spin, slowly stopping on a series of numbers and symbols. When the
last one slipped into place, the rotation of the gears inside began to slow,
resuming its former speed.

“It’s
calculated the difference,” Winn said, pointing at the display. “These numbers and
symbols somehow represent the time differential.”

“And how do
you go there, to read the message?” Carma asked excitedly.

“Just touch
this,” he replied, pointing to the metal ball on top of the device.

“You’re
going to do it now?”

“Might as
well.”

He reached
for it, and the moment his palm felt the metal, his body sensed the
acceleration, the tug that pulled him to the micro-fraction of time that would
allow him to land in one of a gazillion different versions of where they were
now.

He felt his
insides shifting, as though he’d suddenly become weightless, and panic as he
felt his body might be rising from the floor. The panic was quickly replaced by
calm, the same sense of tranquility and peace he’d experienced the first time.

He looked
around; the carpet he’d been sitting on was gone, replaced by roughhewn boards.
Orange and yellow light danced on the walls, and he felt heat from a fire
behind him. The furniture of the room was gone, replaced by thin rolls of
blankets. The room smelled strongly of sage.

The symbols
on the paper were shifting, becoming words. As they did, he looked up at Carma.

Whatever it
was, it wasn’t Carma. The creature that sat across from him was large and
hairy, with a massive mandible and lips barely able to contain many rows of
sharp teeth. It stared down at the paper, as fascinated with it as Winn was. He
stifled a reaction, not wanting to upset whatever was sitting across from him,
and turned his attention back to the paper.

Like the last
time, the words weren’t immediately comprehensible. He let them sink into his
mind, trying to memorize them although he wasn’t sure of their meaning.

Then he felt
himself being pulled backward, with everything narrowing and collapsing into
itself. He watched as the large hairy beast quickly shrunk to a pinprick and
extinguished, replaced by the carpet and the room and Carma.

He was
afraid he was going to puke. He stood up and ran for the bathroom.

“You
alright?” he heard Carma calling as he heaved into the toilet. He sensed her
standing in the doorway, watching as he convulsed. Nothing came up, and as
things settled within him, he realized he was hungry. Ravenously hungry.

“What do we
have to eat?” he muttered, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand as he
fell back onto his butt.

Carma handed
him a towel. “To eat? Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he
said. “I’m starving.”

“I have a
tremendous number of freshly baked croissants,” Carma replied. “How about that?”

Winn found
himself laughing a little. “I’ll eat them all, Carma. Every last one.”

“Did you
find out what the message said?” she asked.

Winn let his
mind return to the translation. “Not sure yet,” he replied. “It took me a
little while to figure it out last time.”

Then he
grabbed at the floor, trying to steady himself.

“What?”
Carma asked. “Are you going to be sick?”

“No,” he
said, turning to look up at her. “The message. It said, ‘Don’t let him go’.”

“Don’t let
who go?” she repeated, but it came to her. “David!”

Winn stood
up and reached into his pocket, removing his phone. He called David’s cell.

“What are
you going to tell him?” Carma asked.

“I’m going
to tell him not to get on that plane!” Winn replied, feeling the need to pace.
He left the bathroom, walking back and forth in the hallway as he waited for
David to pick up.

“Come on!”
he muttered.

“He’s not
answering?” Carma asked.

Winn waited
a moment, then spoke into the phone. “David, this is Winn. Don’t get on that
plane. I’ve received another message from Deem. It said to not let you go.
Don’t get on the plane, David. Call me when you get this.” He hung up.

Winn looked
at Carma. “Maybe he shut off his phone while he went through security.”

“Maybe,” she
replied.

“He’ll turn
it back on before he boards, right?”

“I don’t
know. Is that what people do?”

Winn kept
pacing. He tried calling again, but still David didn’t pick up. He hung up
without leaving a message.

“What time
was his flight?” Winn asked Carma.

“I don’t
know for sure,” she answered.

“I’m going
to catch him,” Winn said, running for the stairs to grab his keys.

▪ ▪ ▪

Winn could
see David through the glass that separated the non-secure waiting area of the
airport from the boarding gates. David was sitting in a chair, looking at
papers in his hand.

“David!”
Winn yelled. People in the waiting area turned to look at him. People in the
boarding area didn’t respond, however. The glass was too thick.

Winn tapped
on it lightly, hoping to get David’s attention. A couple of people looked up,
but not David.

A woman
sitting next to David caught Winn’s eye. He waved at her, and she smiled back.
Winn pointed at David, hoping she’d take the hint. Winn watched as she turned
and spoke to David.

David looked
up.

Winn had his
phone up, showing it to David through the glass.

David smiled
and searched through his backpack for his phone. Within a few seconds Winn felt
his phone vibrating.

“I need to
talk to you,” Winn said, aware of the people around him in the waiting area.
“Can you come out, please?”

“I’ve
already gone through security,” David said.

“Come out
anyway, it’s important,” Winn said.

David looked
at him with concern. “OK,” he replied, standing and slipping his phone into his
backpack. Winn watched as David walked through to the waiting area, passing the
guards who kept people from returning to the gates.

“What is
it?” David asked as he approached.

“Let’s talk
outside,” Winn said, leading David through the small airport and out its front
doors, where the late morning sun was beating down on the asphalt parking lot.

“Did you
check a bag?” Winn asked.

“No,” David
replied.

“Good, let’s
go to my car,” Winn replied. They walked through the parking lot to Winn’s Jeep
and got inside.

“What’s this
all about?” David asked.

“I got
another message from Deem,” Winn said. “I translated it with the mechanism,
just like the last one. It said, ‘Don’t let him go’.”

“Don’t let
him go?” David repeated. “What, me?”

“That seemed
the obvious meaning, since you were going somewhere.”

“Why me?”