I stared down at the coin in front of me. It was a dusky gold color and seemed new, but the telltale sheen of a fresh minting was nowhere to be found. The material reminded me of the cheap ten-karat gold jewelry pedaled by swindlers at a Florida flea market. One might be forgiven for mistaking it for an actual currency—on its face was a side profile male head, and upon closer inspection, I realized it was actually the face of the man standing in front of me.
I reached out and picked it up, turning it over in my fingers a few times as I raised it up to eye level. The thing had a weight to it I wasn't expecting; it was far heavier than its diminutive size suggested. I took a closer look at the detail of the face on the front of the coin, noting that it had far more detail than a coin this size should. Flipping it over and examining the reverse side, I immediately flinched away.
What I would normally consider the “tails” side of a coin was nothing more than a swirling, shifting mass of, well, the best way I can describe it is unreality. A spike of pain lanced through my skull and a migraine set in the instant my eyes tried to focus on the chaotic, swirling mess on the backside of the coin.
“Gah! What the hell is that?” I demanded, dropping the coin back on the counter and reeling back. My hands reflexively moved to my temples and began massaging them, and I blinked my eyes rapidly in a desperate attempt to clear the residual nothingness blotting out my vision.
“It’s unpleasant, isn’t it?” the old barkeep said sympathetically. “I find it best to not stare too long into the chaos, lest you lose yourself to it.”
The blank spots finally cleared themselves from my vision, and I focused on the crazy old man’s passive face. “What the hell is going on here?” I said, looking around and noting that every single person in the bar was eyeing me intently over the rims of their glasses. “Who the hell are you people?”
“I said I was going to tell you another story, Del, but I’m afraid it’s not quite time for that, yet,” Bob said, stepping around the bar and walking up next to me. He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, then gestured from the coin to the old jukebox along the back wall. “Pick up the coin and come with me. There are some things you need to experience for yourself before you’ll get the answers that you seek.”
My jaw tensed. Something was way off the rails here. My eyes broke from the barkeep’s soulless gaze and darted toward the jukebox. That same sense of malevolent intent I’d been so sure I’d felt earlier washed over me again, pulsing in time with the shifting intensity of the neon yellow arch framing the thing’s front. It seemed to originate directly from the glowing red core of the machine, beneath the record platters displayed just the other side of its glass window.
I shuddered and looked away. I found it almost impossible to keep my eyes on the ancient record player. Something about it creeped and crawled around the edges of my consciousness, like it was probing my psyche and trying to find some crack through which it could crawl in to take up residence in my soul.
“All will be explained soon, Del,” Bob said softly, as though trying to reassure me that everything was going to be alright. “The first time is always the hardest. Just pick up the token and follow me.”
I glanced down at the bar, noting that my drink still had some life left in it. A large part of me wanted to just knock the rest of it back and call it quits. No new information about a long-dead relative was worth whatever the hell price this guy wanted from me for it, but something in Bob’s voice had driven itself into my consciousness and was actively interfering with my ability to think straight. It was like there was some kind of subliminal command riding on a carrier wave just below the surface of what I could consciously hear.
My hand reached down, almost against my will, and picked up the coin. My fingers clenched around the metal, and to my surprise, it was giving off a low level of heat. The skin of my hand tingled where it came into contact with the object, and I fought back the urge to drop it again. I looked up at the old barkeep, and he smiled.
“Right this way.”
He walked over to the jukebox, and I followed, right on his heels. The bar was deathly quiet, and every eye in the joint tracked me as I crossed the short distance to the back wall. As I approached the machine, my hand reached out, adjusting the coin so it rested between my thumb and index finger. It was as if the coin and the old jukebox were calling to each other, and the golden token slipped effortlessly into the nickel-plated coin tray on the front. The entire series of events happened almost with no conscious input on my part.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
My hand came free of the token, and it disappeared into the depths of the jukebox. I heard it roll along the coin track within the ancient record player for several seconds until it clinked softly into the coin box deep in the machine’s heart.
The neon lights, previously subdued and faded with age, suddenly glowed brightly with renewed life. The display behind the glass was awash with a vibrant yellow light that shone on a series of track cards. I counted, noting there were twenty different songs to choose from, each with a small number listed next to them.
“Choose any song that has the number one listed beneath the track information, Del,” Bob said, snapping me out of the pseudo-trance I’d been in the whole time.
I broke my gaze from the machine and glanced over to him, but he simply nodded once and gestured toward the track list beneath the record platters. I looked back at the list of options, thinking whoever chose the song list for this thing had a bizarre and eclectic taste. Everything from Miles Davis, to heavy metal, to the Taylor Swift song du jour was on the menu—though that last one had a number eighteen beneath it, which thankfully ruled it out, for the moment.
Honestly, I didn’t really see anything that tickled my fancy at first blush, but my eyes kept coming back to a song titled Spectre, by Judas Priest. I’d never been much of a metal fan myself, but I’d had a buddy once who was the quintessential metalhead. We’d known each other since grade school, but when I’d gone off to college, he’d joined the Marines.
Tim had come back from the Global War on Terror in one piece physically, but I could always tell that some of the shit he’d seen overseas would never leave him. He’d gone on to join the Detroit PD, ultimately ending up on their Special Response Team. Then, a few years back, Tim had been killed when some gangbanger ambushed his team while they were responding to a hostage situation.
Spectre had been one of the songs he always listened to, whenever we were out fishing or golfing together. He’d said it was about not giving in to your fear and despair, as doing so opened the door for the devil to swoop in and steal your soul when you were at your weakest… and also that it was a fucking awesome song.
My finger came down on the button, and one of the platters came to life, swinging out from the stack as the turntable rose from below to meet it. A few moments later, needle contacted vinyl, spinning at 78 RPMs, and the first few haunting notes of one of Britain’s premier heavy metal bands filled the bar.
My eyes drifted closed, and a flood of emotions hit me all at once. I hadn’t heard this song in three years—the last time being less than twelve hours before I’d gotten the call from Shelly, who was Tim’s girlfriend at the time. My heart ached for my lost friend, which only reminded me I’d lost even more, just recently. My hands clenched into fists, and my emotions threatened to overwhelm me. My thumb rubbed absently against the missing alloy of my wedding band, and I struggled to take deep, regular breaths.
Then, Bob’s hand landed gently on my shoulder again.
“That was just the first step, Del.” He nodded his head over his shoulder toward a hallway off to the side. A hand-painted arrow on the wall next to the corner into the hallway sat beneath the word Restrooms. “The next one is the hardest, but I promise it’s where you’ll begin your journey to find the redemption you seek.”
My whole body was numb–almost like I’d been drugged–and by this point I was in no mental state to even attempt resisting his guiding hand as the old barkeep led me around the corner and down the dim hall. We stopped in front of the door to a unisex bathroom. A sign that read Out of Order hung at a drunken angle, suspended by the last few strands of adhesive from the rolled up duct tape that appeared to have been stuck there over a decade ago. I turned in question to the man, but he simply gestured at the door handle in reply.
“Open the door, Del. Your path lies beyond.”
The whole scenario was fucking absurd, but for whatever reason, I was past the point of questioning the bizarre antics of the barkeep from a Detroit dive bar. Something inside of me just felt like I needed to do what this guy said.
I took a deep, cleansing breath and reached for the handle. It turned effortlessly at the slightest pressure from my hand, as though the door itself was eager to welcome me inside. The striker snicked as it came free, and I pushed the door open.
The first few rows of grimy, broken tiles on the floor quickly ended in a swirling expanse of nothingness. My eyes burned as I gazed into the sea of chaotic nonexistence, and I immediately tried to recoil away from it. It was the flip side of the coin all over again, but magnified a hundredfold.
Two powerful hands pressed themselves against my shoulder blades, preventing my retreat.
“Remember one thing, Del,” Bob said from what sounded like a thousand miles away. “There’s always a way to win, no matter what it may seem like. Good luck.”
Then, those powerful hands shoved.
I stumbled forward, opening my mouth to scream in terror. Before any sound came out, though, one of my hands touched that tear in the fabric of reality, and the void sucked me in.