Vivian glanced at Erik and gasped. She had never seen living tissue swell up so quickly. Well, that is, she had never seen living tissue swell up so quickly before she saw what happened to Twiki. Her vision went hazy as she watched Erik gingerly slide his fingers under his bandages and yank them apart with a furious thrust. As the wrappings disintegrated, a hail of blood and meat exploded from his slashed midsection, revealing Twiki’s gore-streaked face screaming from between his shredded organs!
“No freakin’ way,” Erik said gloomily. “There is no way this bandage is coming off until there’s a doctor around.”
Vivian blinked hard and shook her head. Erik’s bandages were still fully intact around his dirty, bloated wounds. She pounded her palm against her own forehead as a shiver of relief and residual hallucinogenic terror flushed from her lungs all the way through her frigid toes and fingertips. All other eyes remained fixed on Erik’s gruesome abdomen.
“Hey, what’s the big deal? What are we looking at?” Sherri squinted blindly.
“C’mere, let me touch it.”
Before Erik could protest, Sherri’s bony finger shot out and poked into the bandage. As she touched it, the bony mounds within almost seemed to close in on her fingertip. Erik slapped her hand away with a gasp, and the lumps retreated to their original positions.
“Holeeeeeeey shit,” Bobby said. “Did that feel as bad as it looked?”
“It didn’t, actually,” Erik breathed. “She just surprised me. It … it actually doesn’t hurt at all.”
He poked his own finger at the numb scars.
“In fact, it doesn’t feel like anything, ” he continued. “It’s not even warm. Just all stiff and bloaty. It’s like-”
“It’s like a cadaver’s flesh,” Sherri said, rubbing her fingers with fascination. Erik’s expression agreed, then tried to deny agreement, then settled on regret for bringing it up at all. He turned and slumped back into his seat without another word.
“Your body’s dying,” Sherri said dryly. “Pay no attention.” Vivian’s face wrinkled at this suggestion, though honestly Erik’s words troubled her more than Sherri’s did. She knew that the human body could produce endorphins and other chemical responses to deal with pain, but she was hesitant to believe that anyone could sustain injuries as severe as Erik’s and feel absolutely nothing. It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t right.
It scared her.
It made her wonder about herself.
With the biggest breath that she could accommodate, she straightened her arms against the wheel and pressed her slashed back firmly against the seat. Two streaks of visceral pain immediately shot down the parallel gashes in her flesh and up her spine, hitting the bottom of her brain with a flat, heavy punch that echoed for several throbbing heartbeats. She leaned forward with a heaving pant, taking small comfort in the continuing burn from her stiffly wrapped dorsal scars. Never had she imagined that she’d be so thankful that she could feel pain.
In the back seat, Sherri pulled her frozen knees up to her chest and rolled herself into a tight ball. Her legs and cumbersome boots on the seat further cramped the boys into the walls, but they each silently conceded their space in hopes that it might be enough to keep her quiet for a while. Behind her knees, Sherri shivered against the unrelenting whoosh of the open air.
“It’s colder than the ninth circle out here,” she moaned. “Seriously, Vivian, will you pull the hell over already? What’s your deal? Are we in bat country or something?”
“For real,” Trent agreed. “Either stop the car, or kill me, yo.”
“Does it have to be one or the other?” Bobby quipped.
“We can’t stop,” Vivian said sternly, eyes locked on the road. “I’m sorry that you’re all uncomfortable, but until we find safety, nothing short of an act of God will stop this car.”
Almost before the words had left her lips, the Rabbit’s engine began to convulse under the hood.
“Oh no,” Vivian panicked. “Come on, little car. Not now. Not now!” She furiously pumped the gas pedal, but after a chugging fit of death throes, the old engine choked into silence. The lifeless Rabbit rolled a few hundred feet to a tranquil stop in the middle of the road.
“Oh crap,” Erik whimpered. “What happened? Why did the car stop?”
“Who cares why it stopped?” Sherri said, stepping harshly on Trent’s lap and vaulting out of the vehicle. “As long as we get to get out of the car for a while.”
“It’s out of gas,” Vivian groaned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. The gauges are all dead. I mean, I knew the fuel wouldn’t last forever, but I just filled up last night, and I was hoping that it would last until we got to … you know … something. ”
“Don’t sweat it, Vivi,” Trent said. “You said yourself that only an act of God would stop this car. Maybe we were supposed to stop here. Maybe He’s trying to give us some kind of sign.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that’s it,” Sherri said sarcastically, stretching out her legs with long, ambling steps. “We just drove three hundred miles non-stop in an overloaded beater, and somehow through the majesty and spectacle of God’s will we managed to run out of gas. That’s it. I’m converted.”
Vivian slid defeatedly out of the car and carefully stretched out her weary back and shoulders.
“What do we do now?” Erik moaned.
“There’s only one thing to do,” Vivian shrugged. “We’re going to have to walk to the next gas station and bring back as much fuel as we can.”
“What makes you think the next gas station is within walking distance?” Bobby asked.
Vivian slung the Army backpack over her shoulder and surveyed the long, empty highway ahead.
“Because it has to be.”
The five survivors walked single-file down the derelict highway. Although logic told them that there was no sense in it, years of habit made them walk on the shoulder, ten safe feet from the side of the abandoned road. They had been walking for at least four hours, and the cloudy gray sky was quickly cooling into an earnest shade of black. In the middle distance, an enormous rectangle of fluorescent yellow peered dimly down the highway through the haze of encroaching night. Although unspoken, a sense of desperate hope united them all in the idea that this shape was the profile of a gas station.
Bobby led the sleepy pack, followed by Trent. Behind him, Sherri was guided by the cranberry-colored blob of their combined silhouettes in her vision. Erik walked slowly and stiffly behind Sherri, his shoulders slumped, his eyes barely focused on the back of her boots. His bloated torso swung rigidly as his pelvis turned into every plodding step. Vivian walked behind him, watching his labored gait and trying to ignore the fact that he looked exactly like something out of Night of the Living Dead.
She shook her head in an attempt to clear out the zombie imagery before it took hold, and she immediately started to slip into a wave of lightheadedness. Her constricting bandages did not allow her lungs sufficient air for this unrelenting march. She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, trying to concentrate on moving the oxygen through her body.
“We’ve been walking for hours,” Erik moaned. “If we don’t find something soon, somebody’s going to have to carry me.”
“S’no problem, eh!” Bobby said cheerfully.
“Really?” Erik said skeptically. “Cool. I was expecting a little more resistance than that.”
“No. S’no problem, ” Bobby repeated. “Look.” Erik lifted his drowsy gaze from Sherri’s boots and looked to the side of the road just past Bobby’s outstretched finger. Suddenly his field of vision was filled with a near-blinding shade of Day-Glo lemon. The structure that they had been hiking toward was not a building at all, but a billboard of disgustingly gratuitous proportions.
From the left side of the sign, a cartoon member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police towered thirty feet into the air, chest deep in snow and holding aloft a shovel. Despite his hypothermic predicament, the broad grin on his face and the twinkle
in his Pac-Man-shaped eyes betrayed no sense of imminent danger or fear of death. To the right was a field of hot-pink text in block letters three feet tall. Trent read them aloud.
“Pierre sez, ‘S’no problem, eh!’ North of the Border - 363 miles.”
“S’no problem my ass, ” Erik moaned. “There had better be a gas station before that! ”
“Screw this,” Sherri said angrily. “I’m tired, I’m blind, and now my ass crack is frozen shut. I’m done.”
With that, her bony legs crumpled, dropping her body into a lethargic sprawl across the cold pavement.
“When you get the car started, come back and run me the fuck over.”
“I’m with Sherri,” Bobby said, looking at the clouds. “I’m beat, and it’s getting dark. Well, darker. Looks like it’s time to stop for the night.”
“What do you mean, ‘stop for the night’?!” Erik squeaked. “What are we supposed to do? Just lay down here by the side of the highway and go to sleep like a bunch of rail-riding hobos? Are you insane?!”
“I’m sorry, Erik,” Bobby sighed sarcastically. “All of the five-star places were booked up tonight.”
“No, I agree with Erik,” Vivian said urgently. “We have to keep moving. We have to find some shelter before it gets dark. It’s not safe here.”
“Look, Vivian, we’ve been walking for hours and we haven’t seen jack shit,” Bobby said. “I’m sorry, but we’re on the interstate in the middle of nowhere. It’s safer to just stay put until morning. We don’t want to be wandering around once it turns blacker than Darth Vader’s codpiece out here.”
Vivian felt panic rising. Her frantic breath surged against her bandages, yet her lungs refused to accept any air. Her corset suddenly felt tight enough to splinter her ribs. They couldn’t just stay here in the open. It was illogical. It was dangerous! In desperation, she turned to the one person who was guaranteed to agree with anything she said.
“What do you think, Trent? We should keep going until we find shelter, right?”
“Sorry Vivi, consider me with S and B,” Trent said. “My dogs are barkin’. It’s time to bed down and get some serious sleep on, yo. But there’s no need for unease, girl. We’re all safe here.”
Vivian’s eyebrows arched in disbelief.
“Safe? What makes you think that?”
“That’s the sign. The sign from God,” Trent said, pointing at the billboard. “He wanted to tell us that there’s no problem. We’re safe here.”
“That is not a sign from God!” Erik argued. “It’s barely even a sign for some crappy North Carolina tourist trap! It’s just a bad pun and a rip-off of Dudley Do-Right!”
“Alright, cut it out,” Bobby said. “I’m too tired to fight about it. Let’s do this diplomatically. All in favor of staying, say ‘aye.’”
In unison, he and Trent cemented their already known position.
“All against?”
Erik and Vivian emphatically cast their votes.
“Come on, Sherri,” Bobby said. “You’re the tiebreaker.” Sherri rolled over and pressed her cheek sleepily into the pavement.
“Put me down for whatever says I don’t have to get up.”
“That’s it then,” Bobby said, dropping his massive weight into the grass. “We’re down for the night.”
“But … but!” Vivian stammered anxiously. “But, you guys, seriously! We’ve got no protection!”
“You’ve got all the protection you need right here, baby,” Trent said, holding out his arms. “Come on over here and get enveloped in a field of securi-T.”
“You guys, this is serious,” Vivian said desperately. “If we’re going to stay here, we need to at least build a fire before it gets any colder.”
“Ix-nay on the ire-fay,” Trent said. “Don’t go messing with the equation, Vivi. We’re safe now. A fire might just attract those things that go bump in the night. Besides, you’ve got all the warmth you need right here, my little frost bunny.” With a broad grin, Trent again held out his arms. Vivian ignored him and began searching through the tall grass for dry sticks. In the back of her mind, she seethed at the unfairness of it all. The forefront of her mind, however, was concerned only with the task at hand: getting a fire lit before it was too dark to see anything.
“Bobby, come and help me with this, please?”
The heap of her brother returned nothing but a resounding snore from the very base of his sinuses.
“Great,” Vivian said. “Thanks a lot, Bob.”
She could feel her face prickle with hot frustration. Why wouldn’t anyone just help her?!
“I’ll help you,” Erik said softly.
He smiled and took a stiff, lurching step toward her. In spite of herself, Vivian stared apprehensively into the bloated wounds peeking from under his shirt.
“Oh, uh … thanks, Erik,” she said. “But you shouldn’t exert yourself with your …
I mean … you really don’t have to-”
“Yeah, quit being such a kiss-ass, Little E,” Trent sneered, holding out his arms.
“She can stay plenty warm tonight without your help.”
“He’s right,” Vivian said.
Her face crunched up in revulsion.
“I mean, he’s not right, but you’re all … I mean … Look, you’re in no condition to-”
“I’m okay,” Erik said, squatting laboriously to pick up a stick. “I want to help you get a fire going.”
“Of course you do,” Trent grumbled. “Lousy cock block.” Vivian turned on him with fury in her eyes.
“Trent, are you going to help us or not?”
“I am trying to help! I tell you, this fire is not meant to be, Vivi,” Trent said sleepily, slouching down against the front of the sign. “When you get tired of your little fire idea, my offer, and my arms, stay open all night, girl.” With that, he put his hands behind his head, kicked his legs apart on the ground, and closed his eyes smugly.
Vivian took a shallow breath, unclenched her jaw, and went back to gathering sticks. Although practically crippled by his wounds, Erik was good to his word and continued to pick up firewood with only minor grunts of complaint. In about ten minutes they had gathered a decent stack of kindling by the shoulder of the road. They squatted down next to their pile, enveloped in a cold silence broken only by three points of faint snoring in the darkness nearby.
“Thanks, Erik,” Vivian said drowsily. “Thanks for your help.”
“Eh, I had to,” Erik said. “If it gets any colder out here, I’m gonna take Trent up on his offer.”
Vivian smiled weakly. She picked up two of the larger sticks and started frantically rubbing them together.
“Oh no,” Erik said disappointedly. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m starting the fire,” Vivian said. “Of all people, surely you have seen somebody do this in a movie.”
“No, I haven’t! Have you? ” Erik moaned. “Oh man, I thought you had a lighter in your purse! This will never work.”
Vivian lowered her sticks and raised an eyebrow at Erik.
“Why won’t it work?”
“Because it’s just a cheap plot device. Have you ever noticed that every time a civilized person in a movie tries to make a fire, he says ‘I saw this once in a movie,’
then he rubs the sticks for an hour but never gets it to work? Only faithful Indian guides and crafty indigenous aliens can actually pull off that trick. It’s how the screenwriter teaches the jaded urban protagonist to appreciate a simpler way of life.”
“Don’t be silly, Erik,” Vivian argued. “It’s just simple physics. Friction makes heat; heat makes fire.”
“I’m sorry, Vivian,” Erik said. “We probably would have had better luck using your glasses to focus the sunlight. That one always works.”
He looked up at the cloudy sky.
“Well … when there’s sunlight.”
Vivian shook her head and went back to her stick-rubbing.
> “Well, this isn’t a movie,” she muttered. “Trust me, this will work.” She rubbed her sticks quickly and furiously. She had laid down dry brush for kindling. There was sufficient airflow around the friction surfaces. She knew what she was doing, and she was doing everything right. Yet after several long, darkening minutes of increasingly sloppy strokes, she dropped the sticks and fell into an exhausted, wheezing defeat.
“Damn it, Erik!” she gasped, tugging at her constricting bandages. “This …
should … work …”
“Oh Viv, I’m so sorry,” Erik said, putting his hand on the icy skin of her exposed shoulder. “I’m not trying to be a jerk or anything; I was just telling it like it is. The stick thing just doesn’t work. Ever. We may as well just go to sleep.” Vivian leaned dizzily into Erik’s chest as she struggled to pull air into her lungs. A stagnant aroma of skin oil and rotten cabbage wafted from her red hair into Erik’s nose, but he didn’t mind. He put his arm around her comfortingly, gently pressing her against his gnarled midsection. As soon as her frozen side brushed the clumped masses of Erik’s scars, Vivian chirped in surprise and reflexively shoved herself away from them. Her cheeks blushed as her eyes flicked guiltily to the ground.
“Right, uh … yeah,” she said with forced nonchalance. “So, okay. No fire then.” She shuffled herself away from Erik’s side and glanced uneasily at his knotted injuries. Erik followed her eye line and understood what she was thinking. He had been thinking it himself.
“It’s okay, Viv. I’m going to be all right,” he said. “I promise I’m not going to hur-”
He stopped and shook his head correctively.
“Not going to let anything hurt you.”
He put his hands over his scars thoughtfully and stared silently into the darkness. In the pitch blackness of the freshly fallen night, Vivian looked dreamily into the space where she estimated Erik’s horrific wounds to be. Although there was no light at all, she could swear that his bandages had just the slightest hint of a blue glow coming from behind them. She tried to blink her eyes and realized that they were already closed. As her pupils rolled against the back of her eyelids, the phantom patches of blue glow streaked around the inside of her skull and dissolved. A minute later, she was lost in a black and dreamless sleep.
The Oblivion Society Page 24
