The Oblivion Society

by Marcus Alexander Hart

  “My options are a wrathful God or Y2K?! That’s the best you’ve got?” Sherri spat incredulously. “Considering that it’s the middle of August and God is a fictional character meant to scare you out of casual sex, I’d say you’ve both been spoon-fed paranoid bullshit so long you can’t even form your own thoughts anymore.”

  “No no, seriously,” Bobby said. “I know that the Y2K bug isn’t supposed to take the world by the nuts until January, but that’s why they’re testing the crap out of everything right now. I don’t know if it was the power grid, or a gas line, or what, but I’m betting the Stillwater DWP just scored an ‘F’ on their Y2K readiness exams.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Trent agreed. “Matthew 13:40. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age.” Bobby squinted at Trent.

  “And?”

  “The end of the age is Y2K! The millennium! This is what Matthew was talking about, dawg! Judgment Day! We’re in agreement here, B!”

  “We are not in agreement, you idiot!” Bobby snapped. “Just because downtown Stillwater burned down doesn’t mean that we’re facing a doomsday of biblical proportions!”

  “Oh yeah?” Trent challenged. “If it’s just some little thang, then where are all the people? Where’s John Law at? Huh? Where’s the rescue crews?”

  “And the booze! Where’s the fucking booze?” Sherri hissed, lifting a smoldering arm. “Come on, people, I’m dying here!”

  Bobby ignored Sherri and scratched his beard thoughtfully.

  “There must have been an evacuation.”

  He looked at the scrap of green sarong in his hand and nodded in self-reassurance.

  “Yes. There had to be an evacuation,” he continued. “I’ll bet there was some kind of chemical spill or something. I mean, smell that nasty-ass air! We probably shouldn’t be breathing this shit. God knows what it is.”

  “Yes,” Trent said with a nod, “He does.”

  “Okay, seriously now,” Sherri said urgently, “who do I have to fuck to get some booze around here?”

  Trent sat down next to Sherri and spoke softly.

  “Chill, baby. That’s what we’re trying to tell you! There is no booze. There is no anything. ”

  “We don’t know what happened,” Bobby admitted, “and we’ve got no way to find out.”

  Sherri turned toward his voice and blinked.

  “When the shit goes down, the mass media and their corporate sponsors are never far behind to market their fear-mongering onto the public. Why don’t you just turn on the TV and see what the talking head on the news says?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to tell you, girl!” Trent repeated. “There is no news!

  There’s no TV!”

  “There’s always TV,” Sherri said coolly. “This is America.” Bobby shrugged.

  “She does have a point,” he said. “So the TV is gone. We’ve got to be able to find a radio or something around here. We live in the golden age of telecommunication. I don’t care how big the disaster is-there’s no way we’re completely out of touch with the rest of the world.”

  Vivian touched the broken piece of her heel to the spot where it had detached from the bottom of her shoe, then pitched it into the sand with a smirk. For lack of a better option, she jammed her remaining heel between the body frame and the open door of the HumVee and bent it back until it snapped off. She then slipped her shoes back on and stood up on flat feet, although her toes pointed into the air like she was one of Santa’s elves.

  A noise came from the depths of the ominous silence. She pricked up her ears and listened. Footsteps! The sound was definitely footsteps plodding through the crushed shells of the beach toward the front of the wrecked HumVee.

  “Oh my God, Nick!” she gasped with relief, rushing around to the front of the vehicle. “Nick, where have you been? I was so-”

  Vivian’s words froze in her throat as a hunched, moaning creature extended its bloody hands toward her. She leapt back with a startled scream.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaugh!”

  With a frenzied jolt of adrenalin, Vivian’s fist flew from her shoulder, connecting heavily with the creature’s grimy forehead. Her soggy would-be assailant dropped flat on its back in the sand.

  “Don’t kill me!” it wailed, rolling into a pathetic ball. “I’m harmless! I’m not a looter!”

  Vivian gasped. She suddenly recognized this monster.

  “Oh my God! Erik?!”

  She dropped to her knees and pulled him across her lap, clutching him around his damp, filthy shoulders.

  “Please! Don’t hurt me!” Erik whimpered. “I … I just … what the … Vivian? ” He uncurled and sat halfway up in surprise.

  “Erik, I’m so happy to see you!”

  Vivian gave Erik a relieved hug, but he was too busy rubbing his throbbing forehead to return the embrace.

  “Ow! Hey, why did you just go all Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! on me?!”

  “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry,” Vivian chattered, shaking out her smashed fingers.

  “You scared me to death! You’re bleeding! What happened to you?!”

  “Twiki attacked me!” Erik squeaked.

  He pulled up his shredded and bloodied shirt, revealing two massive clusters of wounds torn in his sides. Thanks to Vivian, a fresh layer of white sand and broken shells now stuck to the moist, gooey surface of coagulating blood.

  “Twiki, your cat? ” Vivian said with disbelief. “Are you sure?”

  “I … I think so,” Erik murmured. “It was dark. The hurricane blocked all the storm drains. I had to go all the way to the end to get out of the pipe.” He pointed at four giant drainage pipes extending from the bluff and hanging gape-mouthed over the bay. This reply effectively created a whole new slate of questions in Vivian’s mind, but none of them seemed important enough to actually ask.

  “This wasn’t a hurricane,” she said quietly. She looked at the pillars of smoke and flame licking the sky up and down the coast. “I think this was something much, much worse.”

  Erik began to cough as the thick pink vapor rolled into his burning sinuses.

  “Well, I don’t care what it was,” he gagged. “I just wanna get to the hospital before I run out of blood.”

  His struggle to stand up pushed a fresh wave of blood from his wounds and a tight groan from his throat. He fell back into Vivian’s arms, and she laid him gently in the sand.

  “We’ll get you to a hospital,” she said reassuringly. “But first things first.” She stood up and grabbed the ripped edge of her skirt, giving it a gentle tug and tearing the fabric in a long, jagged line a few inches above her knees.

  “Oh, that’s swell,” Erik moaned. “I’m dying here and all you’re concerned about is this season’s hemline. Who are you-Mr. Blackwell?”

  Vivian rolled her eyes.

  “You’re not dying,” she said. “We’ll get you to a doctor; we just need to get that bleeding under control first.”

  She took Erik by the hand and helped him to his feet, escorting him to the passenger seat of the HumVee. A little nursing and a lot of whining later, Erik’s wounds were dressed in a six-inch-wide bandage of black polyester torn from the hem of Vivian’s cocktail dress.

  “That’s not exactly sterile,” she frowned, “but at least it’ll keep you together until we can get you to the hospital.”

  Erik lifted his shirt and looked at the neatly tied bandages.

  “Thanks, Viv,” he said graciously. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here.” He gingerly exited the HumVee and began struggling toward the bluff, shouting over his shoulder.

  “Let’s try to find where they set up the hurricane shelter.” Vivian rubbed her eyes.

  “Erik, there’s not going to be a hurricane shelter,” she groaned. “I’m telling you, this wasn’t a hurricane!”

  “Why do you keep saying that?” Erik shouted. “Look at this destruction!”

  “Exactly, Erik!” Vivian
said. “Look at this destruction! Hurricanes cause flood damage! Wind damage! Not fire damage!”

  She slammed the HumVee’s door with a harsh metallic crash.

  “Look at this car, Erik! Have you ever seen a hurricane do this?!” She threw out her arms toward the scorched vehicle. Erik wasn’t looking at her, but past her, at the smoldering door. His mouth fell quiet and slack as his eyes widened.

  “I’ve never seen a hurricane do that,” he admitted.

  Vivian squinted at him, blinked twice, and turned to see what he was looking at. Etched in the peeling black and orange paint of the door was a steaming human silhouette, its ghostly arm terminating in a tiny reflective glint. Permanently welded into the steel of the door handle was a ring inscribed “Gold Level Sales Champion 1998.”

  “Come on, champ.”

  Bobby turned the key in the ignition of a smashed Oldsmobile. He flicked it back and forth a few times, but the electrical accessories failed to power on.

  “Come on, champ. Let’s go. Come on, come on, come on …”

  The key clicked back and forth in the tumbler but had no effect. He pulled it from the steering column and threw it onto the dashboard.

  “Damn it! Another dud. You having any luck over there, Trent?” Trent was trying the key of a New Beetle, but the round little car wouldn’t cooperate either. He removed the key and put it on the warped dashboard.

  “Uh uh,” he answered. “I got no tunes here either.”

  “Man, this is unbelievable, ” Bobby grumbled. “These cars are all obviously too toasted to drive, but I thought we could at least get a radio working!” He waddled over and plucked another key from the smashed metal valet box lying on the sidewalk. It was for a Honda. He compared it to the remaining wrecks in the street and made his way toward a Civic crushed under a utility pole.

  Blinded and unable to help with the radio-finding effort, Sherri sat limply on the singed back seat of a nearby station wagon. The side of the vehicle was marked with crude, soapy letters reading “Alpha Beta Gamma Summer Break ‘99: Fort Lauderdale or Bust!” Sherri’s head rested listlessly on the edge of the burnt doorframe, and her blood-red eyes stared emotionlessly into the middle distance. Her central nervous system had saturated itself with pain-relieving endorphins, downgrading her searing agony to a subdued throbbing. She wrapped her sticky arms around her bony chest and shivered.

  “Man, it’s as cold as a witch’s clit out here,” she said icily. “If you can’t give me any liquor, could you at least give me my coat?”

  “Doubtful,” Bobby said. “Judging by what ended up landing here, I’d say your coat is probably in Port Manatee by now.”

  Trent kicked aside the debris that had collected against the side of the battered, yet unmoved, submarine. A thrashed leather collar peeked out from under a displaced heap of planks.

  “Au contraire,” he said. “I think you may be in luck, my little chilly filly.” He grabbed the coat and pulled it slowly from the wreckage. With the exception of the intact collar, the rest of the coat had been reduced to a shredded mass of black leather.

  “On second thought, never mind,” he said. “This thing got the beat-down, for real.”

  “Wait,” Sherri said, “did you find it?”

  “Yeah, but you can’t wear it; it’s all-”

  “Gimme it.”

  Trent shrugged and handed what was left of the coat to Sherri.

  “As you wish, love.”

  Sherri took the bundle of mulched fibers and searched it with her hands. Unblinkingly, she reached inside the tangle of burnt cowhide and produced her skull-capped whiskey flask. A quick examination of its surface with her blistered fingertips revealed a jagged hole and a dry interior.

  “Shit,” she muttered. “There really is no booze left.” She threw the flask blindly and heard it clatter away somewhere in her personal darkness.

  “Shhh!” Bobby said. “Hey, did you guys hear that?”

  “What?” Trent asked. “The flask?”

  “No no,” Bobby said. “There’s something else. I think there’s somebody there!” Sherri and Trent stopped breathing and listened as the ash gently fell through the pervasive pink vapor. There was no sound at all. Then suddenly, something! A clank of tumbling debris, followed by an odd crackling noise.

  “Hey! Is someone there?” Bobby yelled. “Heeeey! Hey! Over here!”

  “We’ve got an injured girl over here!” Trent added. “Let’s get some help on, yo!

  Send a doctor!”

  “Fuck the doctor!” Sherri shouted. “Send Jim Beam!” The sounds of their voices echoed off the remains of the downtown buildings and then evaporated into a whispery silence. Trent scrambled onto the roof of a demolished SUV and strained to see any sign of movement in the surrounding field of urban rubble. He turned all the way around, scanning the horizon.

  “Do you see anything?” Bobby asked.

  “No. Nothing but fog,” Trent said. “There’s nothing out … whoa! Check it out, homes!”

  “What? What do you see?”

  On the top of the car, Trent set his feet apart and rubbed his hands together.

  “By my right of victory! By my blood!”

  He grabbed hold of a blunt metal handle that jutted from the scraped roof and, with a dramatic thrust of his body, drew Planet Packrat’s theatrical sword from where it had been jammed into the wreckage. He held the blade aloft and bellowed.

  “Give me the power!”

  Bobby glared at Trent with annoyance. “What the hell are you trying to do, turn into He-Man?”

  Trent swished the heavy blade through the air, then raffishly planted the tip in the dented metal roof.

  “He-Man? Oh, come on, B. Have you no sense of higher culture?” Trent smiled.

  “That was Excalibur. I saw that film, like, fifty times. The hot chick gets ‘em out in the first twenty minutes, yo.”

  Bobby rolled his eyes. Trent continued.

  “I just pulled the sword from the stone. That makes me king of England.”

  “That’s not a stone,” Bobby sighed. “It’s an SUV.”

  “Fair enough,” Trent nodded. “That makes me king of Detroit.”

  “Well, that’s very special,” Bobby said. “Would you mind coming back down here and trying another key, your majesty?”

  “You’re just jealous,” Trent smiled, climbing to the ground. “You know the king always bags the fairest maiden in the land.”

  “Oh please, God,” Sherri moaned. “Don’t let him be referring to me.” She slowly slid her shoulder off of the doorframe and fell on her back across the seat, her boots sprawling out onto the pavement. The second she landed, a tongue of flaming pain licked down her back and through her body.

  ” Ahhhh! Ouuuuch!!” she hissed.

  She realized that her head was in a cold puddle on the seat, a puddle with a stale yet recognizable odor. The wincing pain of her intense burns suddenly slipped her mind as she sat up and patted the puddle with her fingers, trying to scout out its edges and its origins.

  Bobby pushed through the cloud of pink vapor toward the Civic. The door had gone missing, so he just plopped into the driver’s seat and punched the key into the ignition.

  “Come on, champ; come on, champ …”

  He cranked the key and nothing happened. Not so much as a flicker.

  “Damn it,” he moaned. “They’re all hosed? This is statistically impossible.” He jammed the key into the soft, melted plastic of the dashboard and grumbled. His nose stung from the pungent air. With a roaring snort that flushed his sinuses into his throat, Bobby gathered and released a huge, wet loogie into the passenger seat. The syrupy mass of mucus was an unnatural shade of pink.

  “Aww, nasty,” he grumbled. “I’ll never be able to take Pepto-Bismol again.” Suddenly, he heard a noise. It was the crackling again, but this time it was louder. Closer.

  He glanced out the shattered windshield and saw a dirty old Army-surplus backpack fly out of the Alpha Beta G
amma station wagon. It was followed by seven dirty socks, a chain of condoms, four rolls of toilet paper, and three issues of Hustler.

  Sherri’s ransacking of the frat boys’ car did not produce any kind of crackling. Bobby hopped out of the Civic and met Trent next to the valet box.

  “Hey!” Bobby whispered. “Do you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Shh! I hear it again! The crackling. Listen!”

  Trent strained his ears gamely for Bobby’s alleged crackle. He could hear the fluttering of papers. A loose door creaking on ravaged hinges. Somewhere the breeze whistled eerily through a lonely window screen. The overarching theme of this auditory picture, however, was silence.

  Pure, thick, pink silence.

  “BBBBRRAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWP!”

  Bobby leapt in the air like a startled housecat before spinning around toward the sound.

  “Waaaaah!” he gasped. “What the hell was that?!”

  “Pardon me,” Sherri said dryly.

  She was sitting on a large box in front of the station wagon, chugging a can of beer, and wearing the remains of her shredded coat as if in protest of the whole situation.

  “Whoa!” Bobby said. “What is that?”

  “It’s beer, lame-ass,” Sherri said triumphantly. She jabbed a thumb toward the station wagon. “There was a whole cooler full of it in the way-back. I told you there was booze-you guys are just too brainwashed by the rules of society to think outside of your narrow-”

  “No, shut up,” Bobby said sharply. “I meant, what is that you’re sitting on?” Sherri looked down and blinked.

  “How the hell should I know? I’m fucking blind, remember?”

  Bobby shuffled over and shooed Sherri from her perch. He picked up the hefty box and read it excitedly.

  “Hibakusha Electronics 5-in-1 Camping Lantern. Where did this come from?” Vivian and Erik plodded through the abandoned streets of Stillwater with directionless ambition. They didn’t know exactly what they were looking for, but they each had a sense that they’d know it when they found it.

  The pulverized road was dotted with vehicles reduced to little more than charred husks and broken glass. Vivian didn’t look directly at them as she trudged by. She knew that within each makeshift crematorium was a driver who had met with some terrible fate, but a fierce sense of denial kept her eyes pinned to the ground. She couldn’t get her mind off of Nick. He was dead. Vaporized. His life had been snuffed out against the side of his precious HumVee, and a feeling of deep mourning gnawed at her mind.