One Blink From Oblivion (5 page)

From just outside of the open door (and still out of sight) Vinny enters the conversation, “I always knew you were an asshole but I never knew how deeply you were afflicted.”

Zack sits up straight in his chair, “You skinny freak, you know nothing about what I’m going through. Answer me one question. Have you ever had a girl? Keep in mind your wet dreams about Brooke don’t count.”

Vinny steps fully into the room and like a red rose anger blossoms on his face, “You’re lucky I don’t hit ladies,” he says balling one fist.

“Everybody knows that Brooke likes darkies. I bet Max is tapping that right now,” Zack smiles because he knows he’s found the right button to push.

Vanessa stirs and this prompts Onan to interrupt the argument, “You two take that shit outside.”

Vinny gives Zack a final stare, “This is your lucky day,” and turns to walk out. He finds himself face to face with Sam and Lisa, “Man this place is too small,” he states under his breath as he heads for the front door, “I need some air.”

***

As Max and Brooke have shared stories of the strange and stranger the physical distance between them has gotten less and less. They now sit on the front porch swing-chair intimately close and unable to break eye contact. Sharing their odd and unbelievable stories with each other has brought them not only a sense of relief but comradeship.

The front door swings open and Vinny steps out. Upon seeing Vinny, Max instantly realizes how very close he is sitting to Brooke and subconsciously scoots away.

“Wow, it looks like ol’ Zack was right,” Vinny speaks softly to himself.

“How’s Vanessa?” asks Max.

“It’s all good. Onan thinks she just fainted. He says it’s common for pregnant women and she just needs rest.”

“That was not a faint,” after her conversation with Max, Brooke is surer than ever about what she saw. “How many unconscious people do you know that can turn their heads 180 degrees?”

This invites a chuckle from Vinny, “I thought I was drunk but now you must be high. Are you talking about a Linda Blair head spin and spitting up pea soup?”

“You know I don’t drink or anything else and I’m a rational person. I know what I saw.”

“If her head had spun like that, her neck would be broken. She’d probably be dead…but you know what? Come to think of it, I did see this guy on Ripley’s that could turn his head like that. He could stretch the tendons in his neck or some shit. It was sick.”

“Max saw something strange earlier today too, maybe we should just go.”

Max, who had been characteristically quiet during this conversation finally spoke up, “She might be right.”

Vinny, feeling surprised that Max would feed into Brooke’s delusion, turns to Max, “Not you too. Now I know Mr. Clean isn’t high or drunk so some weird shit must really be going on. I’ve never known you to be afraid of anything. Did you see a burning cross or something?”

Max, growing increasingly tired of Vinny’s sense of humor that is hard to take even when he wasn’t drinking says, “Get serious for a second, Brooke is scared, I’m confused, let’s just grab our crap and go.”

“Go, are you serious? I can’t believe that you’re listening to this horseshit. The woods are dark. She doesn’t know
what
she saw. I tell you what, as soon as you two can get a ride then feel free to break out. Until then I guess you’ll have to make the best of it,” and with that, Vinny -now completely sober and irritated- spins through the open door and lets it slam behind him.

“Well that was about what I expected from Vinny,” says Brooke, “He never can see past his own nose.”

“Not exactly the body part I would have chosen for that statement,” this remark from Max garners a slight smile from Brooke who is secretly happy to be alone once again with Max. He apparently feels that same alluring draw because he stands immediately and puts out a hand.

“I think we should get back inside,” Max says, while averting his eyes from hers.

“You’re not on the football field. When are you going to stop running?”

“Brooke there’re things you don’t know about me and never should.”

“I know enough. I saw you smile at me in the mirror on the way up here. Don’t pretend that this is one-sided.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying. Lets get inside and see if we can talk some sense into Vinny,” Max extends his hand further and Brooke takes hold. Her hand is soft and warm and delicate. Max wants so much to tell her how he feels but he fears a relationship with Brooke would come with more of his baggage than she could bear. For now, friendship would have to suffice. He helps her to her feet, releases her hand and they head back into the cabin.

              Early the next morning Max’s contorted slumber on the ancient and sunken couch is curtailed by shouting from one of the bedrooms. He wipes his face with a broad hand in an effort to clear the previous night’s haze from this new day. He turns his head to better decipher the dialogue of what sounds like a heated argument. The first thing he notices is that the voices are those of Zack and Vanessa. Secondly, he realizes that Zack’s dog is howling outside in apparent response to -or melody with- the quarreling.

“Not the first time he’s heard this I guess,” Max says to no one in particular.

Max does his best to eavesdrop between howls and is able to clearly hear Zack say, “What the hell do you want me to do,” followed by the response, “Be a man!”

Their voices have now grown to the point that the dog’s howls fade into white noise.

Zack’s voice deepens, “Oh you mean a man like Max? That Nigger isn’t fit to hold my jockstrap.”

The last statement brings Max angrily to his feet but he quickly regains his composure. The increasing volume and content of the argument has brought other eavesdroppers out into the main room. Vinny is also awake and sitting upright in his recliner. He rises and approaches Max.

With an angry glower he spits, “Let’s tune that fucker up!”

Just then, Zack and Vanessa’s verbal altercation appears to turn into a physical one when the sound of glass breaking and objects tumbling to the floor silences even the dog. Everyone that had collected in the main room is now franticly racing to the door of Zack and Vanessa’s bedroom. Onan is the first to arrive and reaches for the knob only to find it locked.

“Who has the key,” Onan entreats, but before anyone can respond Max kicks the door in, leaving it splintered and hanging from one hinge. This particular bedroom is on the wrong side of the house to take advantage of the early morning sun, so the room remains relatively dark. The scene inside the small, disheveled space is confusing, and a little ironic. Everyone was expecting to find a battered Vanessa, perhaps huddling in a corner with Zack looming over her at the end of his fuse. Instead, they find the situation to be reversed. Zack –with a look of pure dismay on his face- lies in the crack between the bed and the wall with only his head and right arm visible. His bent elbow is propped on the bed and his hand is feverishly gripping the side of his neck.

Without ever turning to acknowledge the newcomers –not daring to take his eyes off of Vanessa- and seemingly unfazed by the shattering of the door, he says in quiet disbelief, “She bit me. That
crazy
bitch bit me!”

The group standing in the doorway had been so focused on Zack in this unexpected state that no one had even looked in Vanessa’s direction. They now collectively follow Zack’s gaze across the dimly lit span of the room to a figure –presumably Vanessa- sitting calmly and motionless in an armchair by the shaded window. Each of them is frozen in place by the bizarre nature of the scene before them. They stand waiting… expecting a more comprehensive explanation from Vanessa. What they receive is a low guttural voice like the sound of rocks ricocheting off of one another in a rushing stream. It’s hardly recognizable as human.

Vanessa seems to almost gargle the words, “My baby is coming and I
must
provide.”

The eerie quality of the statement makes several of the onlookers take a step back, distancing them from its source.

Max reaches for the light switch and flicks it on just as the throaty voice begins again, “Provide for my baby…”

The cause for the gargling effect in her voice is now revealed in the new light as blood –Zack’s blood- bubbles from Vanessa’s mouth, as a wet punctuation to every word she speaks. What then ensues is a mixture of help and hysteria. Onan rushes to Zack to check his wound while several others –with hands over their mouths or eyes like two of the three monkeys who wished not to see, hear or speak evil- retreat entirely, while echoing each other’s screams of disgust and confusion. Max stands motionless –uncharacteristically- not knowing what to do. A friend whom he’d briefly been intimate with now sat before him, a shallow image of herself. She was apparently deranged, or -if he was to believe Brooke’s assessment- something worse, something unexplainable.

Realizing he wasn’t doing anyone any good standing motionless, he withdraws to the main room in search of his cell phone. He grabs his bag and franticly rips through his clothes until his fingers feel the familiar, cool plastic. He removes it and begins to dial 911. All he receives are intermittent high and low tones indicating the lack of a signal.

“Has anyone seen a phone in this place,” Max entreats.

Everyone else had apparently fallen back even further from the grizzly scene and no one answers his question. Max searches the cabin with controlled tenacity and eventually finds an old black rotary phone tucked away in an oversized mold infested cabinet beneath the kitchen sink. The cabinet is easily big enough for an adult to fit in and Max must nearly do so in order to reach the phone. The overpowering stench of mildew is nearly enough to make him withdraw before reaching his prize. When he lifts the phone, he uncovers a circular ring with a hinge recessed in the floor of the cabinet. It’s just big enough to fit a finger through. He has no time right now for curiosity so he pulls the phone out of the cabinet and scouts the walls of the kitchen. Eventually he finds a phone connection jack and hastily plugs the antique dialer into it. He raises the receiver and opts for dialing zero for the operator instead of risking more time wasted on misdialing 9-1-1 on the troublesome rotor. He pulls the dial around and waits... busy signal. ‘
How can the operator be busy’
, he thinks and then decides to go ahead and dial 911. He receives the same busy signal on this attempt. Hanging up the phone and with a new sense of urgency, Max flies out of the front door looking for anyone with a car. He finds Brooke and Vinny on the front porch.

Brooke is telling Vinny, “I told you we should’ve left last night. There’s something seriously wrong with her. She needs help.”

While she speaks, she is simultaneously thwarting Vinny’s attempt to physically console her. Vinny paws at her shoulder hoping for a breakdown in her resolve and a window of opportunity –he finds none.

Max breaks in, “She’s right; we need to go get help. None of the cell phones work here. We need to go back to town and get a paramedic.”

Vinny temporarily gives up on his mission to comfort Brooke and calmly says, “You’re right. That was some strange shit but you two need to calm down. There’s no sense in the three of us driving around blindly looking for help. We’ll send Lisa. She grew up not far from here and she’ll know where to go.”

An anxious Brooke repeats, “We need to get out of here. Something isn’t right.”

Vinny -again in a calming voice- says, “As soon as Lisa gets back with help and we know that everyone’s ok then we’ll take off. This weekend is definitely a bust… But hell, maybe we can still salvage it… Head to Vegas, get our gamble on, and maybe even treat Max to a hooker or two. Agreed?”

Brooke’s response is a reluctant, “Yes,” at this point she will agree to anything that involves leaving this place.

After a petitioning glance from Brooke, Max responds with a head nod.

***

Max approaches Lisa -who is pacing the floor and mumbling something under her breath- and lays out their plan. Lisa agrees that she is the best choice for the job and is evidently relieved for an excuse to get out of there, even if her departure is only temporary. She dons her yellow windbreaker and wastes no time while grabbing the keys to Onan’s gold Mercedes rental and heading for town.

Vinny steps into the main room of the cabin and using his best grown-up voice he explains to all who care to hear, “We sent Lisa to town for help. She thought she could be back within a couple of hours. Onan thought it safer to not move Vanessa and, he said Zack’s bleeding has stopped so he should be ok until help arrives. So we’re all just going to sit tight, wait for help and assist Onan any way we can. All right?”

Brooke sits listening to Vinny’s speech and is surprised to find that he does in fact have the ability to get through an entire paragraph without cracking a joke, though she must admit to herself that she is a little disappointed. A little levity right now could do her some good. 

***

As the minutes and eventually hours click by, everyone busies their selves around the cabin performing tasks of the mundane as well as the gruesome. More for the distraction than the need Vinny walks around gabbing and doing his best to diffuse a difficult situation. Onan tends to Zack’s wound and Brooke mops up the spatters of blood on the floor. It turns out that Zack hadn’t lost much blood, at least not much for a person his size. Max is out back with one eye on Cujo -who had apparently returned some time last night after chasing through the woods- and one eye on the tree line.

Everyone is avoiding Vanessa like the plague and she now sits just inside the open front door staring out while quietly murmuring something incomprehensible. Dried blood still stains her cheeks since no one dares to get close enough to her to wipe them. Her eyes have become wild and sunken back into their sockets. Everyone is pretending not to notice. That is, everyone but Brooke who keeps a watch on Vanessa whenever possible. Onan is sure that Vanessa has suffered some sort of psychotic break brought-on by stress and exacerbated by her late stage pregnancy. Brooke -the psychology major- disagrees. She can find no basis to conclude that a pregnancy, stress or the combination of the two could cause such a drastic change in personality and demeanor overnight.

Outside Max continues to study Cujo -who seems content to sit and lick his nether- regions for hours on end- and comes to the conclusion that he could not have been the beast he saw yesterday in the woods. For one thing -though he is a large dog- he is about half the size of the thing he saw at dusk. Secondly, his eyes were brown and didn’t possess the humanlike quality he’d witnessed in the eyes of the beast. Lastly, he didn’t move like the creature in the woods. He -after all- was indeed just a dog, a large and unfriendly dog, but a dog just the same.

Max checks his watch. Lisa is hours overdue and he is beginning to worry. He steps back into the cabin and makes another failed attempt at using the phone. Frustrated, he turns around and finds Vinny nursing a beer at the kitchen table. Max is glad to catch him sitting alone and he pulls a chair up next to him.

“Vinny, I think she’s been gone a little too long.”

Vinny glances at his wristwatch, “Maybe the town has changed since she was a kid. Let’s give her a while longer before we start to panic.”

Both of them are speaking quietly so as not to be overheard.

Max shakes his head, “I’m worried. Vanessa looks to be getting worse and who knows what’s really going on with her. Onan is a med student not a doctor. She needs professional help. Not to mention that I still can’t reach anyone on the phone.”

Their conversation and the relative quiet in the cabin ends abruptly when an angry Zack –apparently feeling stronger- emerges from the bedroom and B-lines directly for Vanessa, spitting words as he walks, “You crazy bitch. I knew I should have worn a rubber. Just my luck the baby will be a nut just like you.”

As he gets within twenty feet of Vanessa’s back, her previously inaudible chant begins to grow louder.

“Provide for my baby…Provide for my baby…Provide for my baby.”

Her subhuman voice continues to rise and slowly she begins to turn her head and continues to do so until her eyes rest squarely on Zack and her chin is parallel to her shoulder. Now for the first time Max and everyone else can see that her face has physically changed. Her cheekbones have protruded giving her face a skeletal appearance, and thin streams of blood are trickling from the corners of her mouth. The blood appears to be her own, and emanates from wounds on her bottom lip that correspond to her canine teeth, which at a glance appear to be elongated.

Everyone-including Zack- holds his or her breath in awe of the spectacle, and is somehow morbidly transfixed by the prospect of what may happen next.

Vanessa’s head remains perfectly fixed while she slowly spins her body to create a more natural and less horrific angle with it. The movement however brings shutters and muffled yelps from the onlookers. She rises to her feet and takes a slow deliberate step toward her husband. Zack, realizing that repentance for his inflammatory words will be unattainable, takes a step backward and searches blindly with his right hand to locate something he can use to repel the Vanessa-thing that now faces him. Zack feels tile under foot and knows that he is close to the wood-burning stove. He reaches to the location of the fireplace tools using only his memory to guide his hand since he dare not look away from Vanessa.

His hand is mere inches away from the fire poker, but before he can grasp it, Vanessa covers the twenty feet between them in a movement too quick for analysis. She moves so swiftly that it seems as though she disappears from the doorway and appears in front of Zack with little to no time spent in-between. The startling scene evokes a scream from Sam as well as increased blood pressure all around.

Vanessa -breathing in heavy deep gulps of air- reaches up to Zack’s neck with her wide-open left hand in a lightening quick blur of motion and curls her fingernails inward pressing them into the soft flesh of her husband’s throat. Zack screams and fights frantically, pulling and scratching at the outstretched arm and its death hold over him. Vanessa continues to pinch until her fingertips touch. Zack is still drowning in his own scream when she makes her final decisive motion, retracting her hand and bringing his throat with it. Zack’s scream terminates in a last hollow rush of air as his windpipe is severed and left dangling.