1.
Final stop, Gould’s Antiques on Wickham Terrace. The three of them skulk in, trying to disappear amid the furniture and the ball gowns and rows of display cases. The same routine every visit: Angie slinking to the rear of the store, breathing in the scents of ancient leather jackets; Byron down by the glass-fronted cabinet, crouched so low his coat brushes the concrete floor, peering at the flintlocks and gas-masks and colonial knives; Nate just kind of wandering around, not really looking at anything except his watch, fretting about the possibility of missing their last train home.
Nate’s there because they’re a team. Refugees from the land of misfit toys, as Byron’s so fond of calling them, students sharing a shitty fibro shack in a city that has no use for them. A motley trio against the world, the punk-girl, the goth-boy, and whatever Byron calls himself, a witch or a warlock or just strange weird.
They come to Gould’s because Byron adores the place, spinning bullshit about the occult paraphernalia auctioned to secret bidders. But Nate’s never seen magic here, never seen much of anything but antiques and junk. He’s not even sure there’s a difference between the two. Nate loathes Gould’s because Brisbane’s supposed to be a break, one damn day in a city where their pale and black-clad existence doesn’t stand out amid the sea of tanned surfers and overweight tourists. And Gould’s doesn’t deliver that, not like the coffee shops and music stores and loitering by the Hungry Jacks in the mall.
Goulds is the sole place on these trips where the proprietor’s judging gaze makes Nathan Heaney feel like a child playing Halloween dress-up.
The owner is an old man, squat and heavily jowled, with thinning white hair brushed back from his scalp. Despite sitting there, day after day, surrounded by the grandeur of ancient ball gowns and uniforms, he seems content with his drab cardigan and the gilded bifocals that enhance his already formidable scowl. Nate wanders down the aisle and finds himself at the counter, caught and almost trembling under the weight of the owner’s stare. “So,” the owner says. “Just browsing?”
He shifts from foot to foot. “No, I, uh—”
“Not a trick question, son.”
Nate looks away, scanning for back-up, but the others are out of sight. “I’d like to buy something. I mean, I’ve got...” He thinks about his wallet, empty except for a ten dollar note. Fingers dart into his pockets, searching for any extra change. “I’ve got money,” he pleads.
“Right.” The old man picks up a newspaper, folds it. The side facing upwards contains the crossword, the white boxes half-filled with messy scrawl. Nate stands there, hands fumbling for money, face burning with shame. He forces himself to approach the counter, feigning interest, heavy boots clumping against the concrete floor. There’s jewellery in the display cabinets; rings, earrings, and antiquated zippos. Old coins arranged on velvet displays, faces turned to the heavens.
Nate crouches, peering in, eyes drifting across the outmoded currency. He stops when he spots the nickel.
It’s small, an interloper among the disused halfpennies, shillings, and sixpences. Nothing antique about it, just an American coin with a skull carved into the face. The silver metal buffed until each jut of bone and hollow socket is visible. Nate glances up, confirms the old man perched on his stool, scribbling words into his crossword.
Nate can’t explain why he wants the nickel, why he does what he does, but he leans forward, hands pressed to the glass, and feels the door inch sideways beneath his fingertips. He lets go, breath hissing as he inhales. The world slips into freeze frame as he hovers there, expecting somebody to notice the cabinet left unlocked, but the dowdy proprietor is too far gone into his puzzle to register the skinny goth-boy crouched down and poised to shoplift.
Nate exhales, presses against the cabinet, easing the door open millimetre by millimetre. Angie squeals, sharing some joke with Byron up the rear of Gould’s showroom, and the old man glances up, once, and huffs his irritation before diverting all attention to his seven letter word. Nate’s hands tremble as he slides the glass pane to the left, creating a space wide enough to fit three fingers.
For a moment he hesitates. In their trio, their little team, it’s never been him that’s done the stealing. Angie walks off with candy bars. Byron is more ambitious. Nate is always the nervous one, too distracted, too fretful of the consequences.
And yet Nate sees the nickel sitting there—the grinning skull nestled side-by-side with the faces of dead queens and kings—and Nate calmly slips a hand inside the cabinet, claiming it for his own. It’s cold and small against his palm as he nudges the glass closed, eases back like he’s done nothing wrong. He tries to remember Byron’s lessons: stay calm; don’t rush things; wait for a distraction.
Then Angie squeals again, and there’s a crash as a rack of dresses give way, and Nate slips out of Gould’s while the old man huffs and puffs and shuffles off to investigate. Nate waits two blocks down, pulse hammering in his ears, until the exhilaration of the theft wears off.
Hours later, on the train home, the steady click-clack of the wheels lulling them into sleepiness, back to the Gold Coast where there’s no place for antique flintlocks or ball gowns or pocket watches. Brisbane aspires to be a city, to house things laden with the burdens of history, but the Gold Coast is beaches, tanning salons, and tourists by the thousands. A city measuring its past in minutes instead of years. Nate unearths the coin and studies the carved face, puzzled by his desire to steal the damn thing. The skull seems less distinct in the murky afternoon light. The nickel, warmed by Nate’s body heat, engenders an odd, unpleasant sensation like pressing a finger against an eyeball. Nate grips it, nerves taut as he feels eyes upon him, and the shadows in the carriage draw out, growing longer, deeper, and darker.
The others don’t seem to notice. Not right away. Byron is staring at the window, watching his own reflection. Angie’s asleep, the shaved side of her head resting on Byron’s skinny shoulder, the half left to grow long hanging like a purple veil over her face. Nate knows better than to trust Angie when her eyelids are closed. Occasionally, it means Angie’s sleeping, frequently it does not. He can’t tell which until he eases the coin back into his pocket and Angie’s eyes flick open, wide and eager. The same ecstatic grin she breaks out when she catches Nate mid illicit act.
“What’s you got?” she says.
“Something I picked up.” Nate hesitates, then unfurls his fingers to show her. “I think it’s from the States.”
Byron shrugged Angie free of his shoulder and leaned forward. “Where in hell do you pick up an American nickel in the middle of Brisbane?”
Nate curls around the coin once more. “Gould’s. Five finger discount.”
Angie’s eyebrows rise. Bryon snorts. “No way. No way you ripped that place off.”
“Cabinet was open.” Nate cloaks his fist with the other hand, working his thumb back and forth along the knuckles. “You and Angie caught his attention for a minute.”
Angie clicks her fingers, opens her palm to accept the coin. Reluctantly, Nate gives it up.
Byron whistles. “Jesus,” he says, voice muted in respect, “you did.”
“I figured they wouldn’t really miss it.”
“Jesus.” Byron shakes his head. “Cabinet full of antique shit, and you steal a five-cent piece?”
“Maybe it’s magic.” Nate’s grin is wolfish, eager to embarrass Byron with his own bullshit.
It doesn’t work. “They don’t keep that stuff on display.” Byron crosses his arms, tattooed wrist peeking free of his sleeves. “You should have grabbed something cooler. Plenty of shit we could sell in that place.”
“Sell where?” Nate says. “Who buys antiques on the Coast?” He sits there, sullenly waiting for Angie examination of the nickel to cease, unable to take his eyes off the coin as it twists beneath her fingers. Byron stares out the window again, face settling into a scowl. Unhappy at any sign of Nate taking initiative.
“I don’t think I like it.” Angie prods the coin, her expression sour. “It’s cool and all, with the skull, but....”
Nate tilts his head, studying her, ready to pounce on any weakness. Angie rubs the coin’s edge, frowning at the sensation. “It’s weird. Not really metal, like. Creeps me out a bit.”
“So I’ll keep it in my room.” Nate reaches out, plucks the nickel from her grip. Secures it in his pocket and glares, daring both of them to say a damn thing. Bryon snorts derisively, and Angie looks hurt.
Nate doesn’t give a damn. “My score, my coin. Steal your own shit, if you’ve got a problem.”
2.
I hate this place, Nate thinks and takes another hit of Byron’s joint, a little smoke to get through the afternoon heat and oppressive summer humidity. All three of them gathered on the back steps of the house, clustered there with the dope and bottled water, enjoying the breeze that clutches at the hills-hoist and rustles the unwashed grass. Nate in his black shirt and jeans. Byron perched, stork-like, on the step above him. Angie pressed against Byron’s knees, accepting the joint and inhaling a steady toke, the long hair on the left side of her scalp died pink in the two-and-a-half weeks since Brisbane.
Nothing real happens on the Gold Coast. Nothing but summer and rain and the heat that turns their fibro rental slick and humid as a sauna. The neighbor’s cat clambers over the fence to their left, a streak of gray fur disappearing into the long grass. Nate tracks the jaunty, tingling bell on its collar as the moggy crosses the yard. The journey halts three feet shy of the other boundary, the cat hidden in the two-foot grass and weeds. Hesitant to approach the shadow cast by a tall fence of sagging timber slats and rotting hardwood beams.
Nate refuses to linger on that particular shadow, and he doesn’t blame the cat for sharing his caution. Ever since Nate stole the coin he’s been cautious about dark places—hallways, ditches, the leeward side of buildings. Ordinary shadows seem too deep, too long. No longer trustworthy.
“Jesus,” Byron says, “I’ll almost be glad when uni starts again. At least the classes have air-conditioning.”
Angie nods, breathing against the joint, the same agreement they’ve made every time one of them makes that complaint. Nate grunts, bored with the exchange, digs through his pocket in search of the nickel, sorting through the pocket shrapnel. Finds the familiar, unpleasant touch of the nickel with his fingertip, warm and dank as a mangrove floor. He runs his nail across the surface, tracing the contours of the skull.
“We should go to the movies,” Angie says, reeling off another plan for the sake of filling the empty spaces in their conversation. “Go catch a stupid flick, get out of the heat.”
And again there’s agreement, silent and universal. But they’re all broke: too broke to go out, too broke for anything but smoking their last joint. Jesus, Nate thinks, and he slips the coin out of his pocket, wrapping its warmth in his left fist without knowing why.
“Hey,” Angie says. “What the hell’s that?”
They follow her finger, searching the fence-line for God knows what. Byron slouches to his feet, seeking a better vantage point. His eyes are bloodshot and his shirt hangs open, tattoos of ankhs and pentagrams inked along his ribs.
“Can’t see nothing,” he says, and Angie jabs her finger.
“Next to the second missing slat,” she says, “down by the clump of dandelions.”
Nate sees it: a twitch in the overgrown weeds, a silky flicker of darkness. He tightens his grip on the nickel and the motion halts. But now they can all discern its presence. Sense it without perceiving, like the shadows have evolved into a living phenomenon, hunkering in the overgrown grass. Something that watches, a tangible threat, and everyone’s struck by this emptiness that’s cold and terrible and forlorn as a lost soul. Angie, at least, starts shaking.
“Let’s go inside,” Nate says, and he knows Byron is nodding. Byron who’s already standing but not willing to look away. Then the darkness, the emptiness they’re looking at without really seeing, congeals and spreads through the overgrown weeds, creeping forward like a rising tide. Nate wills to shadows to stop, but the coin doesn’t obey him. He panics and pockets the coin in case they have to run, letting it drop amid the pocket change he carries around to camouflage its presence.
The shadows halt their advance and panic melts away, all of them breathing slow and moving slower.
“Jesus.” Angie’s shaking, wild eyes searching the fence. She edges back towards the house, clutching at the old stair rail. “Nate, that was you. What the hell did you do?”
“Me? Not a thing.” Nate collects the dropped joint, rescuing it from the rotting step.
“Bull,” Angie says. “You had the nickel out again, yeah?”
“I don’t got it on me,” Nate lies.
“Fuck off.” Byron’s voice is shaky, but the threat is there. He grabbed at Nate’s wrist, pulling at the closed hand. “You’ve carried that thing everywhere since Gould’s man. Don’t pull this shit.”
Nate turns to Byron, stares him down. For the first time, Byron sees danger in Nate. He releases the arm and steps back. “Jesus, Nate. What the hell?”
It’s hard not to thrill at the fear Nate senses, the acknowledgement he carries more than a pilfered five-cent coin. “Back off, both of you,” he says.
“Nate, it’s doing something,” Angie says. “Your fucking coin’s summoning that thing, making it go away.”
“Like magic?” There’s nothing friendly in the way Nate says it anymore, and a small part of him hates the loathing in his tone.
“Yeah.” Angie’s voice stretches around the word, weak and reedy. “Yeah, exactly like magic.”
“Christ, Angie, you’re fucking stoned.”
“She’s not,” Byron says. “No more than you and I are.”
“It’s just a damn coin.”
Angie pulls herself to full height, gets into Nate’s face. “You claiming you didn’t notice that?”
“Notice what? There’s nothing there.” Nate screws his eyes shut, holding back the irritation. He wants to lash out, shove Angie away. Buy himself a little space, find somewhere cool and well-lit to contemplate the coin and figure this out. Instead, Nate takes a deep breath before meeting Angie’s stare. “I’m suggesting you might see things things that aren’t there. You know, again. Like last time.”
“Fuck you,” Angie runs her hand across the stubbled half of her scalp, fingertips teasing the longer strands at the edge of her undercut. “Fuck you, Nate, for trying to gaslight me on this shit. Fuck you very much.”
She retreats, preferring the sweat-box heat of their house than sharing the steps with him. Nate watches her departure with his mouth clamped shut, fighting the urge to shout that he’s sorry, to give in just like he always does whenever Angie doesn’t get her way. Byron looms by the door a moment longer, shaking his head in disgust. Then he disappears to comfort Angie, leaves Nate out there alone with the joint, the brewing storm, the shadow, and the nickel Nate no longer dares to touch.
They spend four days avoiding one another, brokering a terse detente. Nate promises himself the nickel stays in a drawer, but never seems to follow through. He reaches for the coin without noticing, always tasting the same cold terror and the quickening pulse. He tries to leave the coin alone and discovers that he can’t, that he’ll pick it up and fondle the metal until the unseen presence musters the shadows and begins a slow advance. Nate smokes endless cigarettes to cover his nerves, prowling the house like a caged beast.
“This isn’t fair,” Nate argues, cornering Byron in the kitchen. “She can’t expect me to take her seriously, right?”
Byron doesn’t turn away from the counter, attention focused on spooning instant coffee into a chipped and dirty mug. “She’s scared, Nate. Something weird happened. Has been happening since you got the nickel.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s magic.”
“We both saw something.”
“We all saw something,” Nate says. “I don’t think the nickel’s the cause. It’s… I don’t know… an illusion or some shit. A natural phenomenon. A coincidence.”
“That’s three things.” Byron’s voice is steady and even. He picks up the kettle and pours, stirs three times and removes the teaspoon. Byron sips while staring out the kitchen window, scanning the fence and the long grass.
“You got a real explanation?”
“I don’t,” Nate says. “You’re our resident conjuror of cheap tricks, By. I mean, shit, the amount of crap you’ve spewed—”
“Nate.” His name stated with gentle calm, cutting him off mid-rant. Byron turns to study Nate, dark eyes wary and expecting trouble. “Nate,” he says, “what’s up? Why’s it so important this be unconnected to the coin?”
“‘Cause it isn’t. Magic ain’t real, man. It’s an alloy, copper and nickel. Stamped metal scratched up for a creepy art project. No big deal.”
“Maybe,” Byron says, “but now it’s more to Ang, right now. It’s more to me. And I think you recognize that. You’re right there with the two of us. Your nickel’s doing weird shit, Nate, and it worries me and Angie. What we saw, it wasn’t normal.”
“We saw nothing,” Nate repeats.
“Felt then, fine, if the nomenclature matters. The result’s the same.” Byron turns to his coffee, fills the kettle and sets it to boil. “I can find us people who’ll help. Hell, I’ll find people who’ll take it off our hands, pay a little money and deal with the weird shit it brings.”
A small part of Nate sees the sense of the plan, but pride won’t let him acknowledge it. Nate reaches for the coin and stares Byron down, forces the taller man to look away. “You come after my coin, and there will be trouble.”
“Okay.” Byron turns all attention to the whistling kettle. Pouring, stirring, adding milk. Leaves Nate to look on, frustrated and angry.
“All that shit you used to tell us about Gould’s selling occult shit, that was just talk,” he says. “None of us took you seriously. Not me, not Angie. You know that, right?”
“Your prerogative,” Byron says. “Doesn’t change the fact I know people.”
Later, hours later, Nate walks up to Angie’s door. He calls her name, not shouting it, but forcefully. Coaxes her out with the promise he just wants to talk, unrelenting until Angie opens up and blocks the doorway to her cluttered, clothes-filled room.
“Well?” she says, hands on hips, her jaw set and ready in case Nate lapses into asshole behavior. Every inch a woman looking for a fight, except for the wounded fear in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Nate says. “Really sorry. I didn’t mean to imply you were, you know…”
“You saw it, Nate. Admit it.”
“I saw something.” Nate leans against the mold-tarnished wall and wishes it wasn’t so damn hot in the house. “But I don’t think it’s the nickel, Ang. You’re freaking yourself out with the idea, and…”
“And what?” Angie reaches for the door, ready to slam it shut.
“And nothing,” Nate lies, trying to block the memory of eyes upon him, the nightmares he has every night. “Nothing happens with the shadows. It’s just a coin, yeah? A little freaky lookin‘, kinda cool, but just a cheap antique.”
For a moment he thinks she buys it, ‘cause she doesn’t close the door in his face. Lies have always been Nate’s talent, the thing he brings to the house. Angie leads, Byron does. Nate creates the half-truths that allow them to stay friends.
“Show me,” Angie says. “Get the coin out, here. Prove its nothing to do with the creepy thing.”
For a second Nate hesitates, ‘cause he can feel the coin through his jeans, warm and getting warmer. Eager for a moment in the light, exposed to the bright world. Nate’s instincts warn him not to do it, that the lie is over once she sees that the shadows are becoming stronger, omni-present.
But the coin wants out and Nate obeys. He rummages his pocket and produces the nickel, opens his hand to display it to the world. The shadows in Angie’s room congeal faster and thicker than those in the yard, the dim fluorescent bulb doing far less to slow their pace than the golden afternoon light.
“Fuck, Nate,” Angie says, voice soft with fear. “Just put it away, okay?”
Nate works to close his fingers, but they refuse to cooperate. Trembling, fighting back, ligaments and tendons straining. The shadows reach forward to envelop Angie, stretching like the wings of some great bird. She tries to run but Nate is in the way, blocking the easy path out. The shadows grab her, engulf her, bulging and swelling as she struggles. Angie screams, but the shrill fear is very distant, as if she’s in another house instead of an arms-length away.
Through it all Nate can’t close his fingers, can’t lock the coin in a tight fist or fling it away in desperation. Angie’s screaming grows even fainter, so faint it’s almost lost and gone within the swirling darkness.
Then Byron arrives, slapping at Nate’s hand. Wrenching back fingers and forcing the coin to drop free, clattering against the hardwood floor. The shadows retreat, and the grip on Nate’s hand stays clamped down. “What happened?” Byron shouts. “Nate, where’s Angie?”
Nate points to the center of Angie’s room, where the shadows are thinning and receding to their usual place. Where Angie lies amid the puddle of her dirty clothes, cold and pale and scarcely breathing—still as corpse waiting for its funeral shroud.
Angie lies in the hospital bed, all wires and tubes and sallow skin. The room beeps, beeps, beeps, marking heartbeats and hissing breathes, reminding Nate the machines are doing part of the work that keeps Angie alive. Nate hates this place. Sand-colored walls, sand-colored curtains; another fucking permeation on the endless beige the Gold Coast embraces.
“Hey,” Nate says. “Hey.”
He’s holding the nickel, has it coiled tight in his fist, thumb tracing the ridges cut into the side. He wants to give it to her, to tuck it into her fist for luck, to do whatever magic it can to help her out. But the coin is moist, unpleasant to hold, and he knows in his gut it’ll make things worse. He reaches out with his other hand, places it over Angie’s still fingers. She’s smaller, tucked into her hospital bed, but Nate prepared for that. Hospitals reduce people, shrink them down to nothing before easing their passage from this world.
“Hey,” he says, “just, don’t die, okay? Hold on a bit. Hold on. Byron’s got a plan.”
Nate kisses Angie’s forehead, just in case it helps. Angie sleeps on, breathing and beeping and hissing away, and Nate knows the shadows stalk her still, predatory and eager to take their revenge on the woman who identified them. Nate senses the lurking emptiness he first detected in their backyard, on the train. He clenches the nickel in a tight fist and wills the shadows back, but they remain. A permanent watcher, waiting to pounce.
Byron waits out in the hall, cigarette in hand. Unlit, but toying with the cancer stick to fight back nerves, trading furtive glances with nurses convinced he’s about to spark up. When Nate approaches, Byron stares with glistening eyes, fighting back tears.
“We’re getting rid of your fucking coin,” he says.
Nate bites his bottom lip and tightens his grip. “It’s just a coin,” he says. Damned if he knows why. Another untruth he can’t help himself speaking, even if his brain knows its wrong.
“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” Byron says. “I’ll make making the fucking call.”
And he disappears down the hallway, cigarette still in hand, heading for the bank of payphones only used by pensioners and deros. Nate stands there, watching him go, unwilling to open his hand. He’s afraid that letting go will free the thing that watches him, let it retreat into the room and savage the sleeping Angie. He’s terrified that maybe what Byron’s saying is true, and that everything that’s happened is all his fault.
3.
Byron lines up a meeting for three in the morning. Wakes Nate and drags him to the narrow parking lot tucked beside Australia Fair, the big mall a looming shape behind them as Byron pulls in. Australia Fair is close to water, like everything on the Coast, nestled next to the highway that runs parallel with the beach. Beyond that is the estuary where the Southport River meets Pacific. The dodgy end of the Coast, home to junkies, students, and the ill. Informal camping grounds for the homeless come sundown.
Nate waits beneath the streetlight, nickel in his pocket, wondering if someone will show, if Byron is serious when he claims he knows people, and why they have to meet in the middle of the fucking night. “You certain we’re making the right call?” he asks, again.
Byron’s frown is all the answer Nate needs: angry and nervous at the same time. “I’ve been thinking,” Byron says, “about you and the coin. You stealing from Gould’s without getting busted. I figure they let you lift it. I think they recognized the coin was trouble and wanted it gone and you were the patsy who fell for the set-up.”
“Maybe,” Nate says, because he doesn’t want to agree, because he still wants to pretend that there’s nothing wrong. “You never mentioned who we’re meeting out here.”
“This guy’s a friend of a friend.” Byron searches his jacket for a cigarette, casting furtive glances down the street. It’s dark there, in the mall’s shadow, and the soft tick of the streetlights seems loud and alien in silence. “Not someone I know, but he’s probably, you know…”
“Dangerous?”
“Maybe. Obviously not above board. Definitely not white magic.”
They realize too late that they aren’t alone. “And what constitutes white magic, fuckhead?”
The figure walking down the car park ramp is one of the biggest men Nate’s ever seen. Six-five, broad-shouldered, head shaved down to gray stubble. His dark suit blends seamlessly into the gloom of the night and there’s a short, stubby weapon in his right hand. Not a gun, not quite, but its shape is close enough. “So,” the big man says, “which of you has the coin?”
“That depends,” Byron says. “You Sabbath?”
The big man snorts his amusement. “Sabbath doesn’t make house calls, mate. He sends me.”
Byron chews over the information, not sure how to play it. Nate’s eyes twitch back and forth between the stranger’s weapon and the cheerful grin. He makes the circuit three times before Byron digs deep, finds the courage to say, “You got a name?”
“Randall.” It doesn’t suit him. The feral, misshapen beauty to Randall’s face deserves a better match. A name to suit the predator’s smile and the unsettling fire behind the eyes. Nate’s putting some thought into running, but Byron isn’t ready to surrender. Nate watches his friend adopt a grin, stepping forward to meet their visitor.
“I’m Byron. He’s—”
The big man, Randall, fires his weapon. Two darts thump into Byron’s chest, the steady click of electric current breaking the still of night. Byran slumps to the ground, limbs doing the stun gun fandango.
Nate backs away. “What the hell?”
“Taser,” Randall says. “You’ve bonded with the coin. You decide what needs deciding. I didn’t want this munter getting in your head.”
“The coin—”
“The nickel.” Randall makes a tiny O with his thumb and forefinger. “Little thing, skull, ugly as sin. You have it, right? I’d hate to reload and go through this again.”
“I’ve got it.” Nate drops a hand to his pocket, but Randall darts forward to catch his wrist. Strong fingers wrapping around thin bone and flesh, twisting it up and away and around behind, locking the arm behind Nate’s back and torquing ligament.
“None of that, mate,” Randall offers the threat casually, confident of Nate’s obedience. “No touching it, not out here. Trust me, better for all concerned. You got that?”
Nate forces an unsteady nod against the pain.
“I want it said aloud, mate.”
“I’ve got it,” Nate says. “No touching the coin.”
Randall lets him go, delivers a gentle shove. Nate stumbles, concrete kissing his knees. A fresh, bright spark of pain. “I don’t get it,” Nate says. “It’s just some weird-ass nickel.”
“Lots of peculiar things in this world. This one’s a long way from home.” Randall produces a cigarette and cups both hands around the tip, flame blossoming between his palms. “Can’t say we’re fond of it, me and Mister Sabbath. Too bloody disruptive, you know?”
Bryon stirs, coughing, whimpering like an injured animal. Randall takes a short step, builds momentum for a kick that catches Byron in the teeth. Nate flinches, looks away. Fights the urge to reach for the nickel and let the shadows eat this asshole. “That’s—”
Randall coils around, a predator eager to pounce. The words die in Nate’s throat, stick there until he coughs them free and forces speech through the knot of fear. “Beating my friend’s not exactly going to convince me to… you know… deal.”
Randall smiles, transferring his cigarette to his left hand. “Look at the stones on you,” he says. “Good for you, kid. Good for you.”
Nate exhales, and Randall’s fist lashes out, buries deep in Nathan’s stomach. He folds over, gasping for air, and Randall takes hold of Nate’s hair.
“Now stop being a fucking idiot, yeah? I’m not here to negotiate with you. That coin, it’s all kinds of bad news. One curse if it’s stolen, another if it’s given away. More effort than I’m willing to put in, mate, all things considered.”
Nate coughs, splutters, forces himself to breathe. “Then… what?”
“What do I want?” Randall lifts the cigarette to his lips, breathes with casual ease. “I’ll help return the nickel to the original owners. You want rid of it, they want it back. Seems straightforward enough, yeah?”
No, Nate thinks, not easy at all, but what comes out of his mouth is a small, reluctant, “Yeah, I guess.”
“Good call.”
Randall takes off across the highway. Long, easy strides carrying him away from Nate and the sucking, unpleasant sound of Byron trying to breathe through his wrecked lips and teeth. Nate hesitates, just a moment, hand hovering over his pocket, but Randall calls out and he moves, jogging over empty lanes to catch up. He follows the big man down to the riverside park, along the pebble paths no-one but the homeless use wit any regularity.
“Whatever you do,” Randall’s voice floats back through the darkness, “don’t throw a ciggy into the water. Damn shit’ll go up in flames if you give it half a chance.”
Nate’s already wheezing with the effort of keeping pace, staying close enough to see the vague shape of Randall’s silhouette in the shadowy night. He can barely think of smoking, think of anything but the coin, the big man leading him into the darkness, and the prickly points of fear digging their tines into his intestinal tract. He’s so focused on it all that it catches him by surprise when Randall stops, settling down on his heels, and lights a small candle.
“We’re here.” Randall nods at the path, the tightly packed pebblecrete leaving the shoreline and winding towards the highway underpass, a pedestrian convenience no-ones bothered to use in all Nate’s years on the Coast.
There were urban myths about the tunnel, local tales about rape and murder and worse, stories that may be bullshit for all Nate really knows. But standing there, next to Randall, with the flickering candle lighting up the concrete mouth and the urine scent in the air, Nate can’t help but acknowledge that there’s something wrong, some aspect of the open gullet and the darkness inside that appears too thick to be real, obscuring the far end just forty or fifty meters away where Nate knows, instinctively, he should see the glow of a streetlight.
Randall kneels down, sets the candle on a patch of grass, using his body to shield it from the wind. Nate stands by, arms slack at his side, legs hollowed out with a fear he can no longer explain. He advances with four uncertain steps, positions himself by Randall’s elbow. The big man’s scent is two packs a day and very cheap cologne and, faintly, hints of both sugar and sulfur.
“This here,” Randall says, “it’s very do-not-try-this-at-home, yeah? You’ll wake up tomorrow, your sheila’ll be on the mend, and we all pretend like none of this happened. You understand what I’m saying, mate?”
Nate offers a mute nod.
“Out loud,” Randall says.
“Yes. I understand.”
“Great. Exactly what I need to hear.” Randall gestures to the underpass. “Move your arse, get close to the tunnel as you can, and place the coin on the fucking ground. Once that’s accomplished, you’re done. You bail out before anything else happens, right?”
Another mute nod, this one met with a stare, and it takes Nate a few seconds to realize he should move instead of saying yes. He ventures towards the tunnel mouth, leading the way with the fist holding the nickel tight. He blinks, trying to get his vision to adjust, to penetrate the uncanny darkness. There should be neon lights to guide him, or moonlight at the far end. Instead, the depths of the underpass are ink-dark, an endless void stretching into infinity. No matter how his pupils dilate there’s no peering through.
“In and out, kid,” Randall says, voice pitched low so only Nate can hear. “Don’t fuck around.”
Nate nods and takes a few more steps forward, but that’s as far as he gets before he sees something: a kind of thickening in the darkness. Frost-touched air flows out of the underpass like an exhalation and the sudden bite of it makes Nate open his hand, the nickel dropping and bouncing on the pebble path, rolling towards the tunnel mouth.
For a moment Nate watches it go, mutely processing what just happened, then he kneels and reaches for the lost coin, dimly aware of Randall shouting something, angry words Nate can’t make out.
As he stretches, fingers straining, the darkness congeals into a long and twisting tendril that slithers free of the tunnel and curves around the coin. Nate freezes, kneeling, reaching forward. A desperate thought about fighting the writhing tendril flits across the mask of terror. Then a second tendril slides clear of the gloom, advancing on Nate with the sinuous, winding inevitability he associates with snakes. Nate reaches for the coin, and the tendril wraps around him, and pain ignites every nerve in his wrist.
Randall is there, grabbing Nate by the shoulder and hauling him free, tossing him back and out of reach. “None of that, mate. Mister Sabbath made you a deal, we’re returning your fucking hobo nickel. Leave the poor bastard alone, yeah? He’s only the messenger.”
For a moment the tendrils hesitate, poised in front of the big man. Randall shows no interest in giving ground, no interest in anything but staring down whatever exists in the shadows of the tunnel.
And Nate, he sees the nickel going, watches it being dragged into the shadow. The part of him that doesn’t want to let it go makes one last desperate dive and reaches for it, crossing the tunnel’s threshold, plunging into the darkness beyond.
For a moment, the moment before he screams, Nate marvels that what he feels creeping up his wrist isn’t cold, not for all the ways it bites and numbs and chills him down to the marrow. No, not cold at all. But it’s the only word he has for it; a frost that emerges to fill the absence, blighting heart and soul. That’s all he gets time to think before the pain obliterates all conscious recognition and Nate’s scream really opens up.
Later, when he comes to, Randall is standing over him, cigarette in hand. Nate blinks and stares at the shaved scalp, the little point of orange light that is the burning cherry. Randall leans down, forces one of Nate’s eyelids open, waves the hand-rolled cigarette back and forth, watching the pupils. “You’ll do,” he says. “Better get up.”
Nate doesn’t want to obey, but he does it anyway, levers himself into a seated position. They’re back in the car park, in the shadow of Australia Fair. Nate’s hand strapped to his front with strips of white fabric. Bryon’s leaning against the fence, shirt missing, hands pressed to his nose. There’s blood splattered down his pale, skinny chest, and he doesn’t look in Nate’s direction.
“Just so you know,” Randall says, “you truly are a stupid fucker.”
He offers a hand and lugs Nate upright with casual ease. “Could have gone smoothly, if you let the coin go, mate. It would have cost you a little less.”
Nate stands there, nodding, taking it all in. He tries moving his fingers on the bandaged hand, fails. “I can’t feel anything,” he says.
“Like I said, mate, stupid.” Randall exhales, drops his cigarette on the concrete. “Collect your friend and get your arse to a hospital, let the doctor take a squiz. Won’t do shit, most likely, but you never know.”
“And if they can’t help?”
“Get some practice using your other hand, ‘cause that one’s fucked for good.”
Nate opens his mouth to argue, then shuts it when he catches the warning look in Randall’s eye. There’s a rage burning there, behind the pleasant facade. Nate can’t place what gives it away, but it scares him. Terrifies him like the darkness in the tunnel, the unseen thing that emerged to track the coin.
“So, all this?” Randall gestures between them. “Never met, yeah? Mister Sabbath will not hear from you, or that dipshit, ever fucking again. Whatever occurred down there, it was just a bad dream. Agreed?”
Nate says nothing and Randall steps forward. Steps and looms, a big man with the ability to inflict harm, and part of Nate wonders that he can yet muster fear of physical harm, get that quickening of the pulse at a clenched fist and the promise of violence.
He chooses not to test it. “Agreed,” Nate says. “A bad dream.”
“Good call. Now fuck off, mate. Check in on your girl. See if she’s doing better now the bad voodoo’s gone back home where it belongs.”
Nate fixes a stare on the big man, honing in on the glimmer of red light in Randall’s pupils. “And she’ll be okay, right? Angie, she’ll be better?”
“Sure, kid. That’s the deal.” Randall pulls out the pack of cigarettes, taps a new one free, and plants it in his mouth. He holds Nate’s stare the entire way, as if daring him to call the bluff. “We’re done, you understand me?”
Nate nods, once. “We’re done.”
He turns and walks, leaving Randall and Bryon both, stalking into the night that smells of saltwater and petrol fumes and the faint scent of brimstone. As Nate makes his way along the block, heading for the mall and the streets beyond, the path that’ll lead him to the hospital, he’s careful to move from streetlight to streetlight, spending as little time as possible walking through the dark.
Nate catches Randall’s laugh behind him, a soft chuckle tinged with respect. He counts the seconds until Byron does the math, realizes he’s left behind as Nate skulks off. That Randall is still dangerously close, the same big man who tasered Byron and showed no compunctions about hurting him.
There’s sixteen seconds before Nate hears Byron call, a quick sprint down the footpath path. Nate keeps walking, moving forward, sticking to the light.