The Massacre Mechanism (The Downwinders Book 5) (9 page)

The symbols
had changed. They were gathered into five groups.

Five
words,
he thought.
But he couldn’t read them. They were still cryptic, not normal English.

Suddenly he
was pulled backward by a mighty force. He fought the pull, wanting to try and
memorize the symbols, but its strength increased rapidly until his body gave in
and he found himself passing through the momentary bliss he’d experienced
before.

And then,
with a sudden, unceremonious abruptness, he felt the heat of the storage space
pressing down on him. It made his knees weak. Someone was grabbing him, holding
him. After what seemed like hours, he opened his eyes to find Awan’s arms
around him.

“You fell,”
Awan said.

“Well?”
Daniel asked. “Did you see them? Do you know what it says?”

“I saw
them,” Winn replied. “I saw them. The room changed.” He looked up. “There was a
strange light, and the door was different.”

“You lucky
bastard!” Daniel exclaimed, giddy with excitement. “I’m so jealous!”

“What did
the symbols say?” Awan asked.

“I don’t
know,” Winn replied. “I couldn’t read them. It was like seeing them translated
into another set of symbols I couldn’t make out either. What was the point of
this?”

“You’re just
confused by the timeslip,” Daniel said. “It’s not unusual for details to blur,
especially your first time. It’ll clear up as you regain your senses. Think.
What did you see?”

“There were
five words,” Winn said.

“What was
each word?” Daniel asked.

Winn closed
his eyes to concentrate, hoping he could see the symbols in his mind. He
thought about trying to stand up, but he knew his body was too weak, and he
felt a growing pain in his stomach that made him think he might throw up. After
what he’d just been through, he didn’t mind being held.

“I can’t see
any letters, not anything I know,” Winn said. “Oh — wait a moment. I see an
‘O’. And a ‘F’. “Of. Third word is ‘of.’ Fourth word is ‘the’.”

“It’s like
fucking charades,” Awan said, chuckling.

Winn opened
his eyes. “‘Of’ and ‘the’,” he said. “That’s all I can see. Useless.”

“No, it’s
not useless,” Daniel said. “It’s entirely natural that simple words would clear
up for you first. So we’ve got blank, blank, of the, blank. Is that right?”

“Yes,” Winn
said, closing his eyes again, feeling things begin to twist in his guts.

“What else,
can you see anything else?” Daniel asked.

“No — wait,
well, I can’t make it out, but the last word is longer than the others. First
two are short words, the last word is twice as long. Fuck!”

“The word is
fuck?” Awan asked.

“No, I’m
fucking pissed off that I can’t make them out!” Winn said, trying to stand up.
Awan helped raise him.

“Would you
hold onto him?” Awan asked Daniel. “I’m going to attach this new piece of
drywall and clean up so we can get out of here.”

“Sure,”
Daniel said, grabbing Winn by the shoulders. “Do you need to sit back down?” he
asked Winn.

“No,” Winn
replied, taking a step and feeling his legs wobble. He realized the pain he was
feeling in his stomach wasn’t nausea; it was hunger. “Why am I starving? I feel
like I could eat a horse.”

“Side effect
of the timeslip,” Daniel replied. “Empties out your stomach. Feels like you
haven’t eaten in a decade, doesn’t it?”

Winn laughed
a little. “A century!” Winn suddenly remembered Daniel in the back of his Jeep,
the head rising out of his chest, pressing on the cloth of his shirt. He
reached up to feel his own chest, panicked that a hitchhiker might have
followed him the way it followed Daniel, but found only a soggy shirt stuck
tightly to his chest and abs.

“We’ll get
you something just as soon as I get done,” Awan said, already positioning the
sheetrock.

▪ ▪ ▪

Winn decided
to leave the music off as he drove home from Indian Springs. It had been a
strange, troubling day, and he wanted to think. His brain felt foggy, both from
the time differential and the lack of sleep.

After they
finished at the storage bay, Daniel instructed Winn to park the truck near the
offices for a moment, where he removed a small device from his satchel and
loaded it with a few drops from a vial. After aiming it at the office building
for several minutes, he put it away and told them they could leave, that the
corruption of any time coding on video recordings was complete. Winn drove
straight to a restaurant on the boulevard, wanting to eat before they returned
the truck.

They talked
more about the day’s events, and Daniel expressed concern that the mechanism be
placed under some kind of protection as soon as possible. Winn agreed he’d take
care of that as soon as he took them home. Daniel also asked if he might visit
sometime and perform inspections of the mechanism. Winn agreed and said they
would work out something down the road.

In Indian
Springs they exchanged contact information with Daniel, and Daniel returned to
Tonopah. Winn thanked Awan copiously for his help, and they discussed how crazy
the last twenty-four hours had been.

Now, on his
drive back, Winn could feel the exhaustion in his body, but his mind wouldn’t
stop. The message he’d seen during his timeslip was still there, reverberating
in his mind, insistent upon a translation.

His plan was
to take the mechanism straight to Carma’s, where he knew it would be safe. As
he passed through North Las Vegas, he calculated the time; two hours if he kept
at it, maximum speed. The sun was starting to set, and it would be dark well
before he arrived.

He felt his
shirt sticking to his body.
I stink,
he thought, trying to remember the
last time he’d showered.
I need to stop at the trailer and clean up, get a
change of clothes.

The images
of the symbols continued to burn in his mind. They were there, overlaying the
view of the interstate, begging to be understood. As he took the Moapa exit and
passed by the gas station, the last word of the message came clear:

trailer

Trailer?
he thought.
Because I was just
thinking about the trailer?

of the trailer

The last of
dusk faded from the sky as he approached his trailer, turning from the paved
road onto the short dirt driveway. At first he wasn’t sure if the exhaustion of
the day’s events were to blame, or if he might somehow still be in the
timeslip, but he knew something was wrong.

He parked
the Jeep, but kept the engine going. The symbols were moving in his mind, shifting.
If they were about to clear up for him, and finally reveal the message, he
didn’t want to disrupt it by getting out and walking. Instead he closed his
eyes, his hand still on the gear shift.

The first
two words began to crystalize:

Get

Out

He opened
his eyes. It was dark, and no streetlights were nearby. He knew something was
wrong. He could feel it.

He reached
for the headlight knob and turned it, sending beams of light forward toward the
trailer.

It had risen
from the ground, hovering in the air in front of him. The lights from his Jeep
were able to pierce through the space under the trailer, illuminating the
sagebrush on the other side.

He sat
stunned, unable to process what he was seeing. The trailer rose even more as he
watched, now five feet from the desert floor.

Back up,
he thought, the primal, survival
part of his brain taking control.

Mechanically
he reached forward while pressing on the clutch, slipping the Jeep into reverse
and slowly drifting backward, away from the spectacle. As the headlights pulled
back, the entirety of the scene became framed in their focus. The strangeness
of the trailer floating in the air confused him more than it frightened him.

I must
still be in the timeslip,
he thought.
It’s the only explanation.

Then the
trailer exploded.

Winn came
out of the bathroom wearing only a towel. David was waiting in the hallway. He
caught David staring and saw him shift his eyes away nervously.

“I put some
clothes on the bed,” David said. “I mean, your bed. In your bedroom.”

“Thanks,”
Winn replied, walking past him. David turned sideways to let him pass.

“Carma asked
me to ask you to come down for a moment before you go to bed,” David said.

“Sure, just
let me get dressed, and I’ll be down,” Winn replied.

David smiled
and headed for the stairwell.

Winn stepped
into the bedroom. He’d slept in the bed many times when a drive home to Moapa
after a dinner at Carma’s was a trip too far, so he knew how comfortable it
was. On top of the bed were the clothes David had mentioned. He picked up the
underwear and looked at it, wondering if it would fit. David was a little
smaller in the waist. He slipped them on; they felt OK.

The t-shirt
was tight across his chest, but beggars couldn’t be choosers; he had nothing at
the moment, no clothes, no food, no personal items — no home. Nothing.

Well, not
exactly no home,
he
thought.
Carma will want me to stay here. That’s probably what she wants to
talk about.

He’d given
them only the briefest of explanations before asking for the shower, knowing he
needed to feel the day’s sweat and residue leave his body before he’d be able
to talk with coherence.

David had
left him a pair of long athletic shorts rather than a pair of pants.
Thoughtful,
he thought.
He knows regular pants probably wouldn’t fit.

He slipped
on the shorts and sat for a moment on the bed. He resisted the temptation to
let his head drop into his hands. He wasn’t much for crying, but he thought if
he stopped to feel sorry for himself, he might lose it and he didn’t want to go
downstairs looking like a basket case.

He stood up
and walked, feeling energized by the shower, knowing he had at least another
hour in him before he’d completely crash.

He went
downstairs. Carma and David were in the sitting room. Carma had placed the
mechanism on a table near the spot where Deem usually sat. He walked to the
sofa where David was already seated and dropped next to him. They were talking
about travel.

“I wish you
wouldn’t go right now,” Carma muttered. “Winn could use your help.”

“It’s been
planned for months,” David replied. “My uncle’s got a ton of things scheduled.
He’d be disappointed.”

“Just a postponement,
maybe?” Carma offered.

“You going
somewhere?” Winn asked.

“Seattle,”
David replied. “In a couple of days.”

Winn reached
out and patted David’s knee. “Thank you for these,” he said, moving his hand
back to pinch up the athletic pants.

“The shirt’s
tight,” David said. “Hope it’s not too uncomfortable.”

“It’ll get
me by until tomorrow when I can buy a few things.”

Carma rose
from her seat and took a cup from a tray. She gave it to Winn. “Here, drink
this.”

Winn took
the cup and looked at it. “What is it?”

“Something
to help you relax,” she replied. “You’ve had quite a shock. Losing one’s home
is a terrible, terrible thing. You likely feel disoriented and rudderless. This
tea will help.”

“Thank you,”
Winn replied, taking a sip. Carma’s teas could often be strange-tasting
concoctions, but this one felt soothing.

“You’ll stay
here, of course,” Carma said. “Until you decide otherwise.”

Winn felt the
enormity of the day descend upon him just as the tea hit his stomach. Carma’s
generosity got the better of him, and he began to tear up.

“Thank you,”
he said, trying to look at her, but not wanting her to see his eyes.

“I’ve
considered that room upstairs your room for months now, so it’ll be delightful
to have you around even more. We’ll get you back on your feet in no time. Now.
About this mechanism.” She turned and walked to the device, looking down at it.
“Are you able to tell us what happened? Or would you rather just relax and we
can talk in the morning?”

“No, I can
tell you,” Winn said, taking another sip of the tea and feeling his anxiety slowly
slip away.

He spent the
next hour relating what had happened with Awan and Daniel, interrupted occasionally
by questions from Carma or David. When he finished he took in a large lungful
of air and slowly expelled it.

“Wow,” David
said. “I should have skipped the studying. You could have used the backup.”

“I had no
idea it would become so complicated,” Winn replied. “I thought I’d go talk with
Awan and we’d ask his friend for help. It just kept snowballing.”

“And you
deciphered the message,” Carma said.

“Just in
time,” Winn replied. “Had I been five minutes earlier, who knows, I might have
been inside the trailer. I might be gone.”

“And the
authorities?” Carma asked.

“The trailer
had mostly burned up by the time the firetruck arrived,” Winn replied. “A
sheriff’s deputy came around. He settled on a propane explosion. I expect
they’ll send someone around to check for signs of a meth lab, though.”

“You are
indeed lucky,” Carma replied. “Did your Jeep suffer any damage?”

“No,” Winn
replied. “I had pulled far enough away. Debris from the trailer hit me, but no
damage.”

Carma turned
to look at the mechanism. “I notice that when I drop into the River, it’s
active,” she said. “The focus you and Awan performed must have awoken it from
dormancy. It’s still humming along.”

“Daniel said
it’s very valuable,” Winn replied. “There’s only a few of them in the world.
And he said it needs to be kept under protection.”

“Well, no
one will get to it here,” Carma said. “We’re as fortified as it gets.”

“Great,”
Winn replied, feeling his eyelids become heavy.

“Now, sip
the last of that tea, and we’ll get you upstairs,” Carma said. “You need a
solid night’s sleep, because we have work tomorrow. Warren is up to something,
and The Fist is involved. I’ll need help from both of you.”

“Come on,
I’ll take you up,” David said, rising from the sofa and extending a hand to
Winn. Winn took it and allowed the man to pull him up.

“Thank you
again, Carma,” Winn said, walking to her. He wrapped his arms around her and
gave her a big hug. He felt her arms on his back, hugging him in return. It
reminded him of the few times he’d received a hug from his mother, and it felt
achingly comforting.

“Sleep,”
Carma said as they separated. “We’ll talk more tomorrow.” She took the cup from
his hand, and Winn turned to go upstairs.

He could
sense David right behind him, making sure he made it up. He thought of telling
David he didn’t need any help, but then decided that given his situation,
perhaps accepting help was the best option.

Once he
reached his bedroom he fell onto the bed and closed his eyes.

“You good?”
David asked from the doorway.

“I’m good,”
he replied.

“Great,”
David said. “I’ll close the door.”

“David?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you
again,” Winn said, his eyes still closed. “I mean that.”

“You’re
welcome,” David answered. “If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask. My
trip starts in a couple of days, but I’m here for you if you need anything in
the meantime. And I mean anything, OK? Clothes, money, a loan…whatever.”

“Where are
you going again?” Winn asked, his eyes still closed.

“To Seattle,
to see my uncle,” David replied. “Midterms are over, so I’ll be gone a week.”

“Seattle,
sounds like fun,” Winn replied, knowing he was only minutes from passing out.

“It usually
is,” David replied. “My uncle knows how to have a good time.”

Winn didn’t
respond, so after a few moments David simply said, “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,”
Winn replied. He heard the door close and latch, and the soft sounds of David
walking back downstairs.

He
remembered turning over in bed, considering for a brief second if he should get
up and take off his clothes. Then he was out.

▪ ▪ ▪

“You want us
to do what?” Winn said, wiping his hands over his face, trying to wake up.
David sat across the table from him, staring down at an ebony-sided box Carma
had placed there. It had small gold hinges. David reached for it, but Carma
stopped him.

“Don’t open
it yet,” she said. “Only once you get there, and only in moonlight.”

“Can I have
some coffee?” Winn said, standing up from the table and wandering toward the
kitchen. “I don’t think I’m quite awake yet.”

“What’s
inside?” David asked Carma.

Carma’s lips
pinched together tightly for a moment. “Small…” she started, then paused.
“They’re little…things.”

“Small
things?” David repeated.

“Yes, small
things with a point on one end,” Carma continued. “You wander over the field
until the box vibrates in your hands. That’ll tell you where to plant.”

“Plant?”
Winn asked, returning with a full mug and taking several gulps. “You want us to
dig holes?”

“No,” Carma
said. “When the box vibrates, drop and remove one of the…” she paused again,
and Winn could see her discomfort. “Remove one of the things from the box, and press
it down into the soil until it’s completely covered by dirt. No part of it can
be left visible. You don’t need to dig a hole. It’s best not to disturb the
ground in that area too much. They’ve got a sharp tip on one side, so they
should sink into the earth easily.”

“What’s this
about 2:08?” David asked.

“You must
start precisely at 2:08 tonight,” Carma replied. “And you must finish before
2:40. You must be absolutely precise about the timeframe. Start exactly at
2:08, not before, and when it reaches 2:40 you can stop, because any you plant
after that time won’t matter. So please try to empty the box and plant them all
between 2:08 and 2:40. You’ll need to move quickly, cover as much ground as you
can. Use the box to guide you.”

“Where
again?” Winn asked.

“The field
just north and west of the memorial,” Carma said.

“I don’t
know where that is,” Winn replied.

“I do,”
David said. “It’s a half hour up Snow Canyon. We’d need to leave St. George by
1:30 to make it there in time.”

“What if
people see us?” Winn asked.

“They
won’t,” Carma said. “Too remote. It’s low risk. Don’t use flashlights, though.”

“And this is
going to release Deem?” Winn asked, looking at Carma.

“Yes,” she
replied emphatically. “It’s Lyman’s plan. It’s been in the works for a very
long time; many, many years. So it’s critical that you follow my instructions
exactly. What’s inside the box will fail if you expose it to sunlight. You must
only open it after 2:08, when you’re ready to plant.”

“Alright,”
Winn replied, rubbing his face again.

“No, please,
this is so important to Lyman, and to Deem,” Carma said, appearing a little
agitated. “I need to know from both of you that you understand this exactly.”
She turned to David.

“Don’t open
the box until we’re there and it’s 2:08,” David said. “Walk around the field.
When the box vibrates, drop into the River, take out whatever’s inside, and
stick it down into the ground until it’s covered. Plant as many as we can until
2:40, then leave.”

Carma let
out a lungful of air. “Yes,” she said. “You have it. That’s precisely what has
to happen. Oh, also very important: you hold the box, David.” She turned to
Winn. “And you plant them. You’ll make sure it happens this way?”

“If this
will release Deem,” Winn said, “Yes, I’ll make sure it goes down just like he
said.”

“Good,”
Carma replied. “Good. There, that’s settled.” She ran her hands down the front
of her dress, straightening it as though the conversation they’d just engaged
in had disheveled her. She reached for her cigarette case and lit up a long,
thin Virginia Slim.

“Since you
slept in so late,” David said to Winn, “I expect you’ll be wide awake at 2 AM.
I got up early, so I’ll take a nap before we go.”

“Good
thinking,” Carma replied, exhaling smoke into the air above her.

“Are you
going to tell us what this all is, exactly?” Winn asked.

“I’d prefer
not,” Carma said. “Lyman feels it will just complicate things if I say too
much. His approach is always need-to-know.”

“So there’s
nothing else I need to know?” Winn asked.

“Not
really,” Carma replied.