The Oblivion Society

by Marcus Alexander Hart

Vivian wrestled her shoulders back through the gap, slid down the hood, and hopped down to the cement floor.

  “I can’t reach the ignition,” she said defeatedly. “I’m just too big.”

  “Good, let’s go then,” Erik said, turning toward the exit.

  “Aw, Vivi, don’t be all down on yourself,” Trent said reassuringly. “You’re not too big. You’re the perfect size. Everyone knows a woman with a few curves is far sexier than one that’s all skin and bones.”

  “Well, it’s my ‘curves’ that are the problem,” Vivian blushed, crossing her arms over her chest. “I could have fit in there if I was all skin and bones like …” Vivian stopped before she had completed her thought, but nobody seemed to realize it. They had all heard the end of the phrase as clearly as if it had been said out loud, and their heads turned in unison.

  Sherri blinked a slow, unseeing blink in the pregnant silence.

  “You’re all staring at me right now, aren’t you?” she scowled. “Forget it. I can’t drive stick.”

  “You don’t have to,” Vivian said. “All you have to do is see if it’ll start.”

  “And we have established that I’m fucking blind?” Sherri continued.

  “Okay, I know the situation is somewhat less than ideal,” Vivian said encouragingly. “But you’re the only one here thinner than I am.”

  “Or, alternately,” Erik suggested anxiously, “we could take this as a sign that we should just give up and get the hell out of here right now.”

  Vivian turned her back to Erik and put her hand on Sherri’s crispy shoulder.

  “Please, Sherri,” she said. “Don’t listen to him. You’re our only hope.” Sherri rolled her reddened eyes.

  “Alright, alright, I’ll do it,” she sighed. “Don’t get all melodramatic about it.” With a broad smile, Vivian helped Sherri onto the hood of the Rabbit and up to its windshield. Sherri easily slid both arms and shoulders through the tiny opening, grabbed the headrests of the front seats, and pulled her narrow body through the gap. She dropped straight down on the other side of the windshield, landing on her head and tumbling over into a heap.

  “Ow! Shit!” she grumbled.

  Vivian took the camping lantern and held it to the windshield. She could see Sherri’s skeletal body lying chest-down across the driver’s seat, her narrow hips stuffed awkwardly between the front seats, her knees planted in the faded upholstery of the back. The rusted lever of the defunct parking brake wedged itself brutally into her blistered stomach.

  “Are you all right?” Vivian asked.

  “Do I look all right?” Sherri bitched. “I’ve been in fetish beds more comfortable than this!”

  Vivian rolled her eyes.

  “Can you reach the ignition?”

  In the sparse light, Sherri could see nothing but a maroon-hued quilt of flat blackness. She fumbled her hands around the wheel and down the steering column until she located the dangling keychain.

  “Got it,” she said, grasping the keys. “Let’s burn some dead dinosaurs.”

  “Wait! Wait!” Vivian piped. “It’s still in gear! Push in the clutch first or it’ll stall.”

  “Oh, screw you,” Sherri snarled, struggling against the seats. “It’s not even going to start anyway!”

  “Come on, Sherri,” Vivian begged.

  “Alright, alright,” Sherri moaned. “God, you’re so needy.” Sherri swept her left arm over the floor until her hand connected with a pedal. She felt out the clutch and, with the sum of her meager upper-body strength, shoved it to the floor with her palm.

  “Unuung!” she strained. “Now what?”

  “Turn the key and hope for the best,” Vivian answered, crossing her fingers. While struggling to keep the firm clutch pushed in with her left hand, Sherri awkwardly reached her right hand over her shoulder and caught hold of the key. With a breathless groan she gave it the most violent crank she could muster. The key pushed against the sides of the tumbler.

  The tumbler turned with a click.

  The engine returned nothing but a cold, blue silence.

  Not a rev of the starter. Not a flash of accessory lights.

  Nothing.

  Gasping air into her strained lungs, Sherri let go of the key and collapsed with her shallow chest draped across the edge of the driver’s seat, her forehead resting on the floor.

  “It’s totally dead,” she mumbled. “Just like us.” Her words darted out of the crevice, slapping the optimism clean off of Vivian’s face.

  “I told you it wasn’t going to work,” Bobby said.

  “It must feel great to always be so right,” Vivian scowled. “Fine. Let’s get out of here before you’re right about the roof collapsing too.”

  “Yes! Yes, let’s do that!” Erik said quickly. “Come on, Sherri! Time to move out!”

  They heard a scrambling commotion from inside the car, quickly increasing in intensity and then falling into silence.

  “God damn it,” Sherri barked.

  “What is it now?” Vivian sighed.

  “I can’t get up. My sleeve is stuck on something.”

  In the darkness under the dashboard, the torn cuff of Sherri’s mangled sleeve was looped irretrievably around the clutch pedal. Vivian held the lantern up to the window and squinted at Sherri’s prone form stuffed between the bucket seats.

  “Well, if your sleeve is stuck, just take your coat off.”

  Sherri thrashed against the binding black leather, but the stringy remains of her coat were wrapped tightly around the length of her captured torso.

  “I can’t get it off!” she spat.

  As the Rabbit swayed angrily on its loose suspension, large knots of crushed cement broke free of the ceiling in waves, tumbling down the ramp and clattering off of crushed metal body panels. Everyone threw their arms over their heads and ducked for cover as the concrete supports let out a moan like whales on honeymoon.

  “Stop! Sherri, stop!” Vivian yelped. “Don’t move! Stop moving!” Sherri’s struggle broke off into coughing and strangled breath, and the Rabbit settled down in its crumbling cavern. Even as the debris temporarily ceased to precipitate from the ceiling, a loud, splintering crackle issued menacingly from the walls.

  “God damn it!” Sherri snarled. “I’m stuck like a dick in a duck in here!”

  “Oh no, no no,” Erik mumbled. “Now what do we do?! We’ve got to get her out of there! The roof is coming down!”

  “Don’t panic,” Vivian said sternly. “We just need to stay reasonable and use logic. Now just calm down and don’t touch anything. You got it?”

  “Got it,” Bobby nodded.

  “You know I got it, girl,” Trent agreed.

  At that moment a thunderous sound of snapping timber rang out from Erik’s direction, sending a shower of gravel tumbling out of the ceiling and into Vivian’s hair.

  “Erik!” she snapped. “I said don’t touch anything!”

  “I didn’t! It wasn’t me!” Erik yelped, turning toward the noise. “It came from over-oh my G-God …”

  Erik’s grimy complexion paled as he gazed into the narrow gap between the two demolished vehicles behind him. Trent brandished his sword and snatched the lantern off the hood of the Rabbit.

  “Aww, what’s got you spooked, Little E?” he said. “Man, you need to work up some testicular fortitude and quit being such a little …”

  He took two bold steps toward the dimly lit crevice before freezing in his tracks.

  “… pussy!”

  Trent was correct. In the dim light of the lantern, all available evidence suggested that the creature lurking in the ruined garage was indeed a pussycat. It had the reflective yellow eyes, the pointed ears, the clawed feet. Yet this creature, which upon inventory purported to be an average housecat, stood just over three feet tall at the shoulder. Erik stared in horror as he tried valiantly to form a sentence.

  “What the … I … I mean … this can’t be!” he stammered. “It … it’s Twiki! ”

 
; “Twiki?!” Bobby hissed. “I thought you said you killed Twiki!”

  “I thought I did!”

  “Well, apparently she didn’t get the memo!”

  Although Twiki was most certainly not dead, she did not look at all well as she emerged threateningly onto the broad concrete ramp. Her horrifically stretched butterscotch hide struggled to cover a pronounced skeleton suitable for a Saint Bernard. Yellow bones ruptured sickeningly through blood-caked rips in her fur at the overstressed joints of her knees and shoulder blades. Her enormous teeth curled from her head in great crooked rows, jutting forward out of her mouth like uneven spears jammed into her bleeding black gums. Dagger-like claws extended from the bloody, fallout-dusted flesh of her mutilated toes, scratching horribly against the cement floor. As she stepped out of the shadows, her ever-expanding flesh and bones crackled like an overstuffed wooden barrel on the verge of eruption.

  “That crackle!” Bobby hissed. “That’s what I’ve been hearing all day!” Erik gasped. “She must have followed us here!”

  Erik, Bobby, and Trent all pressed themselves against the gnarled walls as Twiki stepped forward, letting out a piercing, mewling hiss. Vivian slowly pushed her palms and heels into the rusted steel of the Rabbit’s hood, crab-walking herself to the windshield and pressing her back against it. Four sets of eyes frantically flashed back and forth among each other as they tried to work out a non-verbal plan of action. None of them understood anything any of the others tried to convey. All they understood was that any plan for a prompt retreat was foiled by one tiny detail.

  “Hellooo, assholes? I’m still stuck in here!” Sherri yelled. “Hey, what’s going on out there?”

  Twiki’s beach-ball-sized head snapped toward the sound, and she locked her huge golden eyes directly upon the flushed redhead pressed against the Rabbit’s windshield. Without taking her eyes off of the monstrous cat, Vivian leaned her head toward the gap and hissed out of the corner of her mouth.

  ” Ssssh! Not now, Sherri!”

  “Don’t sssh me! What’s that noise? It sounds like Snap, Crackle, and Pop are having a three-way out there!”

  “Sherri, shut up! ” Vivian bristled.

  Twiki’s eyes narrowed as she turned her hulking body toward the convertible. Her claws scraped like steel tent stakes against the pavement as she lowered her stance and began a slow, stalking stride toward the car. Vivian knew there was no sense in trying to run. This overgrown feline’s hunting instincts would be far too sharp to allow her to escape.

  “Okay, Trent, it’s showtime,” Bobby whispered. “Get in there and do your thing!” The hilt of Trent’s sword shook violently in his trembling fist.

  “I … I … w-w-what’s that now?” he chattered.

  “You protect your girls 24/7, remember?” Bobby coached. “This is what you’ve been waiting for all day, tough guy. Make us proud!”

  At that, Bobby put his doughy hand on Trent’s back and shoved him into action. Trent took several stumbling steps and came to a halt directly between Vivian and the monstrous form of the mutant feline. Twiki rocked back on her crackling haunches and hissed as Trent raised his sword shakily with two rapidly whitening hands. He stood completely frozen in his wingtips, too terrified to even blink.

  “S-st-s-st-stay b-b-back,” he stammered. “I ain’t p-p-pl-playin’.” With Twiki momentarily distracted, Vivian didn’t waste a second in returning to Sherri’s rescue. She scrambled to her feet and thrust her head and shoulders into the gap, once again wedging to an abrupt stop at her chest.

  “Sherri!” she hissed. “Get out of there! Now!”

  “I can’t! ” Sherri sneered. “What part of ‘stuck like a dick in a duck’ didn’t you understand?”

  Vivian pushed her feet against the hood and struggled against the ever-narrowing space between the car and the angled roof, but she was just too big for the gap. She blinked thoughtfully.

  Or was the gap just too small for her?

  “Sherri!” she squeaked. “Can you still reach the clutch pedal?”

  “Hellooo? I’m tied to it!”

  “Push it in!”

  With a grunt and a thrust of her tiny bicep, Sherri drove the clutch to the ground.

  “Now what?”

  “Just hold it there!”

  Sherri wedged her elbow under the front seat, pinning down the pedal with the skinny bones of her own forearm. Vivian wrestled herself free of the gap and threw a glance over her shoulder at the boys. Bobby and Erik stood behind the snarling mutant, glaring at Trent and throwing out desperate body language that screamed,

  “Just do something already!” Trent still stood with his back to the car, sword in the air, not having moved a millimeter in any direction since the last time Vivian had seen him.

  “Y-y-y-you d-d-don’t wanna m-mess with m-m-me,” Trent yammered. “I’ll m-m-mess you up! For r-r-real!”

  “Keep it up, Trent!” Vivian whispered. “Just keep her occupied for one more minute!”

  Without another word, she whirled around, squatted down against the hood of the car, and planted her palms shoulder-width apart on the sloping ceiling. She took a deep breath and coordinated every muscle in her body for one concentrated push. With a sad, rusty creak, the tiny car began, ever so slowly, to roll forward. Jagged blocks of white cement splintered from the ceiling as the Rabbit scraped against the walls of its tomb. Vivian could feel a stream of fine debris flaking off of the ceiling and funneling down her arched back as her head began to pound from the exertion. The gap was growing slowly larger before her clouding eyes as the angled ceiling crept farther and farther from the top of the windshield.

  “Just believe in yourself,” she thought. “Like Nick said. Use your body! You can do this!”

  Behind Vivian’s back, a wet, throaty hiss poured around Twiki’s mangled gums and into the claustrophobic air. Her softball-sized eyes were fixed hatefully on Trent’s chattering teeth as the bloody pads of her feet kneaded the floor menacingly. Her weight shifted back on the tensed muscles of her hind legs.

  “Y-y-you d-d-don’t want to g-g-get all violent,” Trent choked. “D-d-do you, g-girl?”

  The demonic yellow slits of Twiki’s eyes narrowed furiously as she released a cry like a hundred babies being thrown into boiling water. In a terrified sort of slow motion, Trent could see each individual claw dig into the concrete as Twiki’s powerful hind legs launched her payload of sharp, ragged teeth toward his soft flesh. In a sudden flash of clarity, Trent knew that it was time to make his big move. His sword clanged noisily to the concrete as he turned tail and dove to the ground, shielding his head with his arms. Twiki sailed over Trent’s prone form, landing claws-first in the soft skin of Vivian’s back!

  Vivian’s chest cracked the windshield as the monster’s full weight slammed down on her unprepared body. A piercing cry of agony was squeezed from her lungs as the bony hooks sunk deep into her flesh and clattered down her ribcage like sticks across a picket fence. A split second later, Vivian’s quickly silenced screams were replaced by Sherri’s.

  “Shit! Vivian! What in the name of Jesus H. Fuck is going on out there?!” Twiki quickly ripped her claws out of Vivian’s back and turned on the hood, slipping on the bloodied pads of her paws. She didn’t care about Vivian. Vivian wasn’t a challenge; she was merely collateral damage. Twiki’s true prey was escaping.

  As Bobby and Erik were scrambling to Vivian’s aid, the chunky soles of Trent’s shoes were clambering in exactly the opposite direction. With a deafening screech, Twiki launched off of the blood-slicked hood of the Rabbit and darted after him. Trent’s ankles twisted on the pavement as he changed direction and dove into a tiny space between the remains of two parked cars jutting from the tunnel wall. The crush of the collapsed garage had compressed the wrecks into little more than two rectangles of oily steel, but there was still enough space for Trent to shimmy between them. His craven screams were slightly muffled by Twiki’s sinewy mass as she rammed her giant head into the opening, slammi
ng her shoulders against the demolished fenders. A few seconds later, Trent’s screams were abruptly squelched as Twiki’s feline instincts wriggled her massive body into the narrow crevice. Bobby and Erik grabbed Vivian’s limp, bloody body and turned her over on the Rabbit’s hood. Her naked green eyes stared blankly into nothingness.

  “Oh my God, oh my God,” Erik implored. “Please don’t be dead! Don’t be dead!”

  Bobby picked up Vivian’s glasses and slipped them over her empty eyes. Tiny movements of air and spittle whistled between her teeth as she struggled to remain conscious.

  “Bobby, we’ve got to get her out of here!” Erik squeaked.

  Erik grabbed Vivian’s wrists, but Bobby shoved him away with a blunt forearm.

  “I’ll take care of Vivian!” he shouted.

  With that, he squatted down, grabbed his sister around the waist, and hauled her over his shoulder. He wrapped one arm around the backs of her knees and threw out the other toward the Rabbit.

  “You work on Sherri!” he barked. “I’ll be right back!” Without waiting for a reply, Bobby turned and ran down the ramp toward the only way out. With his heart pounding in his throat, Erik spun around and scrambled onto the hood of the car. The garage wailed as several tombstone-sized chunks of concrete smashed down like bombs along the corridor. Before Erik could wonder what was triggering the collapse, a small gap between two nearby wrecks vomited out a bucketful of gravel, followed by a scrambling Trent. The pockets of air within the fallen walls had formed a network of catacombs large enough for him to claw his way through in his desperate retreat. Almost before he hit the floor, the fleeing hipster was immediately back on his feet and sprinting for the exit. Erik grabbed Trent’s sunburnt arm and stumbled along behind him like an ineffectual anchor.

  “Trent! Stop!” he screamed. “Get over here and help me!”

  “Ouch! Damn! Get offa me!” Trent wailed, shoving Erik away. “She’s after me!

  That bitch is gonna kill me!”

  Just then a groaning ripple ran through the ceiling, knocking off a hail of skull-sized debris. From the same gap from which Trent had emerged, a gouged, dust-covered Twiki was frantically clawing her way to freedom. Trent gave Erik a shove that knocked him to the ground.