“Because I’m the one who dug it all out,” Vivian said sternly. She held up her stained fingers in front of her brother’s eyes, which were in turn immediately drained of their fighting spirit.
“Oh. Uh … right,” he said guiltily. “I’m sorry. But it burns like hell, and I just thought … never mind. Thanks, Viv.”
“It’s okay. Forget it,” Vivian said modestly. “I picked out all the glass, but by the time that we got you out from under the shelf you were all covered in that dust that’s all over everything. I cleaned you out as best as I could, but there’s only so much that I can do without proper, sanitary-”
“Yeah yeah. It’s cool. Thank you,” Bobby smiled, waving his hand weakly.
“Where’s everybody else?”
Sherri sighed histrionically.
“The powderpuff’s stomach growled one fucking time and then Erik and Retard-O-Dick got in a cockfight about who was going to get food for her. Now they’re back inside the igloo acting like they’re these big manly providers, while they’re really just trying to be the first one to find that magic potion that unlocks her virgin legs.”
Vivian crossed her frosty arms tightly as her face prickled with humiliation.
“They went to find food for all of us,” she muttered. “I never asked for anything.”
“Well, maybe you should start,” Sherri shrugged. “I’ll bet Trent could find us a four-course meal if you told him you’d flash your tits for it.”
Vivian scowled.
“Can we change the subject, please?”
Bobby glanced over Vivian’s shoulder nonchalantly.
“Hey, who’s the new girl?”
Vivian and Sherri turned and looked in the direction of Bobby’s gaze. On the other side of the crackling fire, Priscilla was on her feet, standing shakily on her weakened legs. Her glassy eyes seemed unable or unwilling to accept the reality of the desolate world she now inhabited.
“Priscilla!” Vivian beamed. “It is Priscilla, isn’t it?” She stepped briskly toward Priscilla’s towering form, extending her arms in welcome and support. As Vivian’s hands rose from her sides, her wings simultaneously extended from her back, spreading into a six-foot wall of nightmarish black leather.
“I’m so glad that you’re okay!” she continued happily. “I was so worried about you!”
As Vivian came closer, the traumatized stranger’s fist instinctually raised into the air, fingers wrapped around a dagger of glass that she no longer possessed. Her glazed eyes seemed to look not at Vivian, but through her, locking on the black sails that loomed from her back. Vivian stopped and raised a curious eyebrow.
“What’s wrong, Prisc-”
Priscilla’s fist flew from her shoulder in a fierce but clumsy jab, tagging Vivian on the nose. She stumbled backward with a pained squeak.
“Ow! Damn it!” she winced.
As her hands shot to her face, Vivian’s wings flew downward from her shoulders, fanning the fire into an explosive inferno. Priscilla’s terrified mouth opened into the shape of a scream, but what came out of her mangled throat was only a gurgling moan. She turned and bolted away from Vivian’s demonic silhouette, half running, half limping on her crippled legs. Within two labored steps, she ran directly into another mutated figure emerging from the darkness.
“Hey, you guys,” Erik chirped, holding aloft four shopping bags in as many hands. “Look what I fouaaaaaggh!”
Without breaking her clumsy stride, Priscilla plowed straight into Erik’s lanky body like a drunken linebacker. Erik dropped his bags and, in a desperate, reflexive attempt at balance, grabbed on to Priscilla’s muscular arms with four frantic hands. Her skull slammed down with a dull thump on Erik’s forehead. For a fraction of a second, he actually felt the front of his brain compress before he lost his quadruple grip and tumbled dazedly to the ground.
“Whoa! Whoa!” Trent said, stepping out of the shadows. “What’s going on here, people?”
“Trent,” Vivian squealed, “catch her! Before she hurts herself!”
“Herself?!” Erik moaned dizzily.
Before Trent could react, Priscilla plowed into him like a frenzied bull. A fully laden Army backpack flew from his hands and hit the ground with a deafening clatter. Before he could fall, Priscilla was behind him, her bandaged forearm holding him up, thrown around his neck as if taking him hostage.
“Aaaugh! Help!” Trent yelped, swinging his arms frantically. “Get this crazy beotch offa me!”
“Trent, stop!” Vivian shouted. “Stop! Don’t fight her! She’s just disoriented!” Disregarding Vivian’s plea, Trent continued to struggle, but Priscilla’s vice-like hold tightened around his neck until he stood still. A second later all was silent, save for a raspy, overexcited breath emanating from Priscilla’s injured throat. All eyes were on her, waiting for her next move. After a long, tense moment, her grip unexpectedly loosened and she lurched forward, throwing her arms around Trent’s shoulders and pressing her face against his cheek with a sob of relief. It suddenly became obvious that she had not been trying to hurt him at all-she had been trying to hide behind him.
Vivian stepped forward and extended her hand in a gesture of goodwill.
“Priscilla? I’m sorry if I startled you just now,” she said calmly. “My name is Vivian. We’re not going to hurt-”
As Vivian drew closer, Priscilla’s grip tightened around Trent’s chest.
“Ow ow, damn!” Trent squirmed. “Step back, yo! You’re scaring her!”
“She’s just startled,” Vivian said, moving forward. “She’s had a rough-” Priscilla took a lurching step backward, squeezing her powerful grip tighter around Trent’s chest.
“I said step the back up, Batgirl!” he choked. “Your freaky physique is scaring her shitless!”
Trent’s harsh words were like a slap in the face to Vivian, and her mouth twisted into an insulted pout. She glanced meekly over her shoulder and saw that her wings had again extended themselves, belching from her back like a pair of gothic cemetery gates shrouded in demon hide. She stood frozen as her lips moved into shapes, trying to put her helpless thoughts into words.
“But … but,” she pleaded, “I’m not … I mean, I’m okay. ” She gestured pathetically to Priscilla, but the girl’s only response was in the form of a wheezing cough that she squeezed accordion-like from Trent’s lungs. Erik quickly grasped Vivian’s extended wings and tenderly folded them down to her back. He took her gently by the arm and led her to the opposite side of the fire, guiding her crestfallen body to the ground and kneeling in front of her, stealing her gaze from Priscilla’s still-trembling form.
“Look, Vivian, don’t take it personally,” he said. “She’s been through a lot. She’s in shock. She’s going to need some time to get used to … you know … us. ” Erik’s right hand gestured to himself, then to Vivian. Simultaneously his left paw did the same, but in the opposite order.
Vivian frowned. “Well, she seems to like Trent just fine.”
“I guess it’s about time somebody did,” Erik shrugged. “I’m not surprised. She looks like she’s … uh, you know, ‘his type.’”
Priscilla’s grip had loosened as soon as the wings had disappeared from her view, allowing Trent to fall out of her asphyxiating embrace. He took two stumbling steps and turned to look anxiously at his former captor. The tatters of her clothes fluttered over her bare skin with a lurid sensuality as her face melted into an expression of pure, unadulterated gratitude. Trent’s own face melted into an amorous grin. A second later he was holding the shivering girl in his arms, squeezing her tightly against his broad chest.
“You’re safe now, Prissy,” he said boldly. “Don’t worry your pretty little head. The T-man isn’t going to let any more nasty mutants hurt you.”
“Hurt her?” Vivian said dejectedly. “Why would I hurt her? I’m the one who dressed her wounds!”
“I’m sure he’s talking about the mutant bugs, ” Erik said, throwing a condemning glare at Trent
. “Just relax, Viv. We just need to take it slow and show her that all mutants don’t want to kill her like the ones inside the igloo did. It looks like she’s had some rough times in there.”
“Now, that’s the thing that I don’t get,” Bobby said.
“What’s not to get?” Erik asked. “It’s pretty obvious that she was working late stocking shelves in that igloo and ended up getting trapped in the zoo with all of those killer mutant bugs.”
“No, I get that part, Jumpin’ Jack Flashback,” Bobby grumbled. “The thing I don’t understand is why there were mutant bugs at all. We shouldn’t still be running into these things. There hasn’t been any of that nasty pink fog for two states now.”
“Well, maybe it’s not the fog that does it,” Erik guessed. “I mean, maybe the mutations are from the nuclear radiation after all.”
“Oh, don’t start that again,” Bobby moaned. “It’s just like Vivian said: Radiation doesn’t just Jekyll and Hyde a bumblebee into one of those … Beelzebumblebees!”
“That’s true,” Vivian said thoughtfully. “But just for the sake of argument, what do we know about what radiation does do?”
“Well, it makes 1950s novelty wristwatches glow in the dark,” Erik said.
“Tanning beds use it to bronze you up all sexy-like,” Trent smiled.
“Sitting too close to the TV makes you start shooting blanks,” Sherri added.
“It’s used to fight cancer,” Bobby noted, “and ironically also causes cancer.”
“Hold on,” Vivian said. “You might be on to something there.”
“What-cancer?” Bobby said doubtfully. “Are you serious? Those spiders didn’t exactly look like the Make-A-Wish Foundation was about to take them to Disney World.”
“No, but think about what cancer does to living tissue,” Vivian said. “Cancer causes cells to split and grow uncontrollably. That’s how tumors form and expand.”
“Oh, come on, Viv,” Bobby sighed, dropping his voice two Austrian octaves.
“It’s not a toomah.”
“I know I’m oversimplifying it,” Vivian said. “I’m not saying that the mutations are literally caused by cancer. I’m just saying, what if the same underlying biological principles are at work? Theoretically, accelerated cell division could explain how Twiki and those insects grew to be so large.”
Erik shook his head.
“But even if radiation did cause the Honey, I Blew Up the Kid effect, that still doesn’t explain why you and me grew extra limbs. Or those bugs in the igloo for that matter.”
“I have a theory on that too,” Vivian nodded. “I think these mutants are infectious.”
Trent’s eyes popped open as he quickly pulled his shirt over his nose.
“Aw shit! You didn’t tell me y’all were contagious! I don’t want you breathin’
mutant-ass germs all up on me! For real!”
“Not contagious, ” Vivian smirked. ” Infectious. From what we’ve observed, every time a mutant animal breaks the skin it causes another mutation. It’s like they somehow spread their genetic pattern.”
Sherri’s head tilted doubtfully.
“So the bugs stung the shit out of each other and made new bug parts. I’ll buy that,” she said. “But what about Erik? Rat Boy over here got fucked up by his cat. ” Vivian raised her eyebrow and looked pointedly at Erik.
“Did he?”
Erik blinked twice as his brain untangled the facts. He remembered the last creature he had seen in the lonely pipe on the night of the blast. He remembered the weight and heft of an animal just slightly too big to be his normal cat … and entirely too small to be his mutant cat. He remembered that long, pointed jaw of fiercely glowing teeth.
“No. No, I didn’t!” he realized. “It had to be a mutant sewer rat that attacked me!” He turned to Trent triumphantly.
“It wasn’t Twiki at all!” he beamed. “See! I told you I killed it!” Bobby scratched his beard and squinted.
“That may be so, but Vivian most certainly did get scratched by a cat,” he said skeptically. “How the hell did that give her wings? ” Vivian frowned.
“That’s the part I can’t work out,” she admitted. “For my theory to hold, I should have acquired feline traits. Cats don’t possess bat DNA.”
Erik nodded slowly.
“Mine did,” he said. “The last time I saw Twiki before she mutated she was up to her little kitty elbows in bat blood. It was probably still all over her claws when she scratched you.”
Vivian smiled reluctantly.
“I guess that validates at least part of my theory,” she said. “But we still don’t know why animals are growing into monsters and humans aren’t.”
“I already told y’all the answer to that one,” Trent said. “It’s the soul, yo. It’s God protecting his peeps from the minions of the deep. The Big Man is always lookin’
out for us-isn’t that right, Prissy?”
By this time, Trent was leaning against the outer wall of the igloo with his legs spread apart and Priscilla nestled between them, her back against his chest. She was wearing his varsity jacket and leaning back into his embrace as if they were two high-school sweethearts snuggling in the bleachers at the homecoming game. Despite the warmth of the crackling fire, the hair on Trent’s frigid arms stood on end. But he didn’t seem to notice or care. He squeezed an embrace around Priscilla’s rippling abdomen, and she closed her eyes and nuzzled her head into his grimy cheek without a word.
“Okay, what’s that shit all about?” Sherri grumbled. “Did you slip her some roofies or something?”
“Now now, don’t let that little green monster get a hold of you, Goldilocks,” Trent grinned. “Prissy just knows she’s safe with me because I was the one who saved her from those demons in the igloo.”
“You didn’t save her!” Sherri spat. “If anybody saved her it was the powderpuff. All you did was stand there and piss yourself.”
“We all played our own little part in her liberation,” Trent said.
“And yours was pissing yourself.”
“Say what you will-it’s abundantly clear which one of us she feels closest to. But you don’t need to be jealous, girl! The T is a two-seater! Hop in!” Trent raised one arm in a giant scoop like a DeLorean’s gull-wing door awaiting a passenger. Sherri sneered.
“I’d rather sit on the wrong end of the Kaiser’s helmet.”
“Damn. That’s cold,” Trent muttered, wrapping his arm back around Priscilla’s appreciative body.
“Dude, don’t even talk about cold,” Bobby said, rubbing his hands over his coarsely bandaged arms. “Right about now I feel like my ass should be in a plastic tube between Alexander the Grape and Little Orphan Orange.”
“Oh! That reminds me!” Erik smiled, scampering to his feet. “I found something for you.”
“If it’s Otter Pops, I swear I’m going to smack you,” Bobby mumbled. Erik retrieved the paper shopping bags that he had dropped in the commotion and began rummaging through them. Finally he pulled out a bundle of lime-green terry cloth and tossed it to his friend.
“Here you go, buddy!”
Bobby unfolded the garment and held it up in front of himself.
“A North of the Border bathrobe?” he asked skeptically. “You shouldn’t have.”
“It was the only thing I could find that was even close to big enough for you,” Erik said. “Besides, I think it’ll give you that certain Arthur Dentian flair.” With a series of pained grunts, and ultimately Vivian’s assistance, Bobby leaned away from the fencepost and slipped the bathrobe onto his stiff, bandaged body. It fit him well, both physically and aesthetically.
“Thanks, dude,” he said warmly. “Already I feel less panicked.”
“Me next!” Sherri squealed. “This sweatshop sweatshirt is giving me a conformity rash. Gimme my coat-I don’t care how messed-up it is.”
Erik winced, as if bracing to be punched.
“Yeah, about your coat,” he said. �
�It’s uh … you know, that spider silk was really sticky.”
“So … yeah? ”
“How can I put this?” Erik said nervously. “Your coat is never coming off that floor. Ever. I tried everything. Pulling it, pushing it, scraping at it with a metal shelf bracket. All I could get up was a few scraps.”
To illustrate his point, Erik pulled a few pathetic strands of black leather out of the bag and dropped them in the dirt in front of Sherri.
“Well, shit,” she frowned. “So that’s all you got?”
“No no! There’s more!” Erik said in a voice like someone awarding a consolation prize. “I couldn’t get your coat off the floor, but I got all the stuff out of the pockets for you. I got your smokes and some change, um … some kind of bird skull, and …
well, you know what you had. I put it all in here.”
Erik reached into the bag and gingerly produced a purse made of pink plastic sewn into the shape of a ladybug. The tiny handbag looked like something that Hello Kitty would have rejected for being “too cute.” He held it out in front of Sherri with a weak, cautious smile, looking something like a suicidal zookeeper might look as he dangled a raw steak in front of a hungry lion.
“I’m sorry,” he whimpered. “It was the only bag they had.” Sherri took the purse with a smile, running her tiny palm over the back of Erik’s mutant paw and giving it a flirty squeeze.
“Cool. Thanks, Erik,” she said. “That was a really nice thing to do.” Unzipping the ladybug’s back, she produced a pack of cigarettes and lit one up. When her pink eyes returned to the faces of her friends, she found herself surrounded by an assortment of slack jaws and suspiciously raised eyebrows.
“What? Get off me,” she said defensively. “It was a thoughtful fucking gesture. So what if it’s pinker than Strawberry Shortcake’s twat?”
The group breathed a collective sigh.
“Um, okay. Good,” Erik said. “I’m glad you feel that way, actually.” He clenched four arms together nervously over his chilled torso and continued.
“So, um … also I was wondering if … I just thought that maybe, if it wasn’t too much trouble you could … um …”
The Oblivion Society Page 35
