One Blink From Oblivion (11 page)

“This is our turn. We’re close now.”

Vinny nods and adds, “That’s good because whatever is following us sounds like it is right on our tail”

“I know. I can hear it too.” Max picked up the sound a short while ago but saw no point in heightening the stress level by announcing it.

Brooke adds, “I think it’s letting us hear it, like maybe it
wants
us to know it’s here.”

Max nods, “I think you’re right. The question is, who or what is it, and why is it stalking us? If it means us harm then the best thing we can do is get out of the open as soon as possible. We only have two guns and there’s too much area to defend out here. The clinic should allow better cover.”

They walk once again, this time upping their pace even more and hoping with every step that they can make it to their destination unmolested. Vinny may have said that he was feeling no pain, but Max finds that hard to believe. Maybe nerve damage is the culprit, or perhaps he is just trying to soldier through it, but Max senses that something is seriously wrong there.

After a few blocks, the clinic is finally in sight.

Max tilts his head toward it, “That’s it right there.”

Vinny smirks, “Well, the lights are on.”

“I was hoping for a bit more than just some lights. Where is the National Guard? Hell, even the local PD would do.” Max says with obvious chagrin.

“Maybe they’re all inside,” says Brooke.

As they get closer to the clinic, it is evident that the military had, at the very least, been there at some point and might even still be within the structure. Two lightly armored trucks are parked at the entrance to the clinic and appear to be partially blocking the door.

“Hey, check this out.” Vinny bends over and comes back up with an empty shell casing from the gutter. “Look, these are all up and down the gutter here.”

He hands it to Max who turns it on end and studies the base of the used bullet.

“This is military issue 5.56 ammunition. It looks like there was a firefight.”

Brooke looks perplexed, “Uh, I’m new to this but, if there was a firefight then shouldn’t there be some bodies, or at least some blood? I mean there has to be over a few hundred used bullets here on the street. They had to hit something.”

Max considers it, “Maybe they moved the bodies inside. Anyway, we can’t stand here any longer, so unless someone else has a better idea I think we should get inside.”

Max signals to Vinny to post up and watch the street while he cautiously makes his way to one of the military vehicles and takes a look through the window.

“No keys in this one. Brooke, can you check the other?”

Vinny whispers loudly since his back is turned to Max, “Can’t you just do your thing?”

“Even if I could, would you really want to get caught by the military driving around in one of their stolen vehicles? Anyway, the doors are locked and windows are up so we can’t even get in to try.”

“Just break the window.”

Max shakes his head, “Bulletproof and shatterproof, but the owners may be inside the clinic and willing to give us a ride. We need to be careful though. They may not take kindly to us entering with guns in hand.”

             
The interior of the clinic is dark, with the exception of emergency lighting that is dispersed throughout the lobby, hallway and over the doors. The interior of the clinic is ghostly silent. Presumably damaged in the firefight, a few of the emergency lights’ wires have shorted-out causing them to flicker and this creates a spastic pseudo strobe effect. During the brief moments of illumination, a scattered morgue of bodies can be seen spotting the floor like the inkblots of a crazed psychiatrist. The bodies are arranged in various death poses. A couple of victims wearing powder blue scrubs are sprawled out face down on the tile floor as if creating snow angels on a cool winter’s day. Several others are propped against walls or slumped over in waiting room chairs as though they’ve had too much to drink. Blonde, red and brunette hair alike is matted with blood. Random bits of bone fragments can be seen speckling sopping hair. All victims –including those whose heritage generally endows them with darker skin- are albino white with sunken cheeks. They appear to be completely drained of blood. Footprints of various shapes and sizes (boots, sandals, dress shoes, bare feet) track through the tacky scarlet coating splashed upon the floor. The foggy stench of decay hangs in the air and clouds the senses.

              “Oh my God!” Brooke’s hand goes to her mouth to stifle a scream, a dry heave or both. The scene in the lobby is almost unbearable.

              “Shhh! Until we know this place is empty we need to be quiet.” Max pans left and right with the shotgun and cocks his head sideways to listen for movement. “Vinny, you better lock that door behind us just in case someone is still on our butts.”

              Brooke shakes her head vigorously, “We shouldn’t lock ourselves in here. What if something comes after us? We’ll need a way out.”

              Max responds, “Pausing to unlock the door is safer than being surrounded or snuck up on from behind. We need to minimize our vulnerable sides as much as possible.”

              Vinny nods in agreement and turns the bolt on the front door. They proceed tentatively past the lobby and into the hall, being careful not to step on, or in, anything that once had a name.

              “We’re going to check these rooms one by one. Look for any meds that might help Vinny, bandages, alcohol, matches, lighters, bottled water and anything that could be used as a weapon. I’ll take point with the shotgun. Vinny, you bring up the rear.”

Max steps over the body of a lady that looks to be in her late sixties. She is thin and shapely. Prior to her death, she could have even been considered attractive. While Max is in mid stride and still straddling her, she appears to move and he instinctively jerks the barrel of the shotgun down lining it up with her head. He’s preparing to pull the trigger before he realizes that the strobe effect of the emergency lights is playing tricks on his eyes. Even with the rationale that it’s just an illusion he still can’t shake the feeling that she’s dancing beneath him to music only she can hear.

He releases the trigger and quickens his stride over her. As he does so, he notices that she’s tightly gripping a large handbag with one hand while her other hand is buried inside it.

Max turns to Brooke, “Shotgun or handbag?”

She looks up at him puzzled, “Huh?”

“Do you want to hold the shotgun or remove her handbag?”

Brooke grimaces, obviously not liking either option, but knowing she needs to pick one. Her choices are; pry a lifeless and bloodied woman’s hand from her death gripped purse, or wield the shotgun with the possibility of having to scatter a biter’s brains on the wall as it charges at her out of the darkness. Brooke thinks but doesn’t say,
‘Alex, I’ll take handbags for seven-hundred’
.

She squats down -being careful not to touch the gory tile with anything but the soles of her shoes. The purse is large enough to be considered an overnight bag. It’s made of tan canvas and has two long and sturdy leather straps affixed to the top. It’s bordered by more leather that has become saturated in spots by blood that had trailed from the woman’s throat and across her arm to the purse handles.

Brooke pries the lady’s death-grip -one finger at a time- from the purse strap. The grotesque popping sounds of rigor can be heard while she does this and she winces with each one. Once the purse is free from the deathly grip, Brooke moves on to the hand inside of it. She grabs the wrist and pulls the hand free. To Brooke’s surprise, the hand is clutching a bottle of pepper spray with the pointer finger already in place on the plunger. Brooke thinks it a shame that she never even got a chance to use it. It probably wouldn’t have done a bit of good but it may have bought her a few more precious moments of life… or at least hope.

Brooke shakes off this sentimentality and pries the cold fingers from around the can of pepper spray. She upends the purse on a small but miraculously clean spot of tile adjacent to the victim and searches for anything else useful. The purse contains surprisingly little for being so spacious.

“Any car keys?” Max asks, sounding hopeful.

Brooke scans the contents -lipstick, compact, a brush with hair included, crackers, a whistle on a loop of yellow rope, chewing gum and a cell phone. Brooke shakes her head in response to Max and scoops up every item but the brush and puts most of them back in the bag. She slides the whistle on the yellow rope around her neck and opens the cell phone. Three service bars smile up at her and she takes a chance. 9-1-1, she punches it in and they all hold their breath with anticipation as the sound of ringing emanates from the earpiece that Brooke holds away from her face. A pleasant voice answers on the other end and Brooke can feel her heart skip a beat.

“We’re sorry; all circuits are busy right now. Please try your call again later,” the voice on the other end admonishes and Brooke closes the phone with a deflated snap.

She drops it into the purse and slings the nearly empty bag over her shoulder. She spins the pepper spray in her left hand until her finger is on the trigger with the business end pointing outward.

“Let’s do it,” says Max and they head, slowly, down the hall.

***

Outside, the unseen follower peers through the windows of the Hummvy and into the lobby of the clinic. He can smell the decaying scent of spilled blood from beyond the doorway and the thought of the butchery that had been unleashed here excites him. He breathes deeply, taking in as much of the stench as possible. As he basks in the fragrance, an even more erotic and very familiar aroma fills his nostrils. It’s the sweet flavor of unsoiled human blood still coursing through veins. Its lovely tangy goodness -so irresistible- was calling to him, beckoning him to come and have a taste. He plans to do just that. Since the freeway, he’d been biding his time until he could drink that sweet nectar as it pulsed from their throbbing arteries, propelled by their pounding hearts. He wants their hearts to hammer with such ferocity that he can drink from their throats like a child at a fountain, lapping up the very essence of them. The blood eases the pain, and even better than that, it brings strength. More strength then he’d ever thought possible coursed through his body when he drank up the sticky nectar from his wife’s arm. He longs for more of that feeling and the thought of it makes him bite into his lower lip until it runs with blood. It was a high like nothing else. This gift from the devil felt like invulnerability, incredible sex, animalistic freedom and ascension to a higher plane with every wonderful gulp. He was driven by this need and this need only, like a heroin addict in search of his next fix. It was taking all of his strength to keep from rushing them and ripping their throats out right now. The freeway-man wants to taste the adrenaline of fear in every spurt after he drives them to the point of delirium in fear for their lives.

The most basal of these feelings are not new to him. He had always been a predator of one sort or another. At a very young age he discovered that he lacked the morale compass that he had heard his parents and various therapists refer to so often. His parents and teachers believed this to be a character flaw that he would someday outgrow. They could not have been more wrong. The fact was that he had always known where the line between right and wrong resided; he had just chosen to ignore it. Something about praying on the weak; snapping their fragile little bones as they made feeble attempts to defend themselves, had given him such a rush. The power to bend someone to your will with nothing more than brute force had an animalistic appeal that he found was indescribable to most. At the tender age of five –when most kids are learning to ride a bike or catch a baseball- he would spend his time with Sox (the family dog) looking for new ways to torture him. The dog had proved to be the perfect prey because he was unable to explain to anyone who would have cared to listen what he had done to him. Sox was a sheep dog mix and by no means a small dog by today’s standards, but even at the age of five, the freeway-man had possessed a size and strength far beyond his years. Though he experimented with a bevy of painful scenarios for the hound –a particular favorite was tying a heavy rock to the dog’s scrotum with an old shoestring so that every step Sox made meant a new and even more painful swing of the weighted pendulum than the last- his go to was the sleeper hold. His father was a retired beat-cop and he had actually seen him use the maneuver once at a family party when his uncle Buck had drank far beyond his limit and made the incredibly ill advised decision to grope his mother. He watched wide-eyed with delight as his father –a large man in his own right- swooped up behind Uncle Buck and placed one beefy arm around his neck. He locked in the noose with his off hand and squeezed so hard that uncle Buck’s feet lost earthly purchase and his face morphed into a swollen red and straining mass. Seconds later, he fell as flaccid as an octogenarian’s penis, and then his father unhinged his mighty grip and watched Uncle Buck heap upon the ground.

Looking back, the freeway-man credited that day for his greatest lesson. The ability to physically oppress was the only absolute truth. Words, whether written or spoken had no meaning if there was no physicality to back them up. As the Dollar needed gold, words needed might. Without the other, they are both equally useless.

The freeway-man eventually graduated from pets to people when Sox mysteriously died of asphyxiation one day while playing with his young master. With the change in species came a change in style and tactic. He found that people were able to endure far more before breaking than any other animal he’d had the pleasure to play with. He bullied and beat whomever he could, and found that sometimes words did have a purpose. He loved to hear his prey beg and plead for amnesty as he bore down on already broken hands with the heel of his shoe. The sniveling little sounds they made increased his power like food for his soul. Once he had grown too old to accost his peers without fear of legal reprisals, he searched for a more acceptable outlet for his proclivities. He turned to mixed martial arts as a legal way to release a small amount of the chaos inside. When it turned out that he actually had quite a talent for the sport, the few who truly knew him were surprised. He was able to parlay his love for punishing others into a fairly lucrative career in various mixed martial arts leagues around the world. It was once said ‘if you want to be happy then figure out what you love to do and then find a way to get paid for it’. He had done exactly that. Eventually, his age and the reality of constantly giving and receiving the punishment of punches and kicks to the head caught up to him and he was forced into retirement. Without the blood sport he so loved, he was once again left with no outlet for his desires. He found himself a trophy wife in hopes that her relative youth, store bought beauty and a steady diet of rough sex would be enough to keep a lid on his yearnings. Inevitably, it did not and what had started out as a nipple twist here and a hard slap on the rear there, had devolved into frequent beatings. His wife’s once lovely face had become a patchwork canvas of corrective plastic surgeries.

Now he was free of her and he couldn’t have been gladder. She had served her purpose as a dutiful wife right up to the end when she had given her life’s blood to him like a flower gives its nectar to a butterfly that’s fresh from its cocoon and ready for flight. He had finally metamorphosed into the apex predator that he always longed to be. It is now his intention to become the reigning champion in the only blood-sport that truly matters.

The freeway-man breathes slowly, not wanting to overlook any olfactory delights that may be on the wind. He exhales and again takes a long drag of that sweet aroma. This time however, there’s another scent, more faint but still noticeable. There is the distinct bouquet of three delicious humans and another odor not quite as pleasing as the others. No matter, he would drink them all down with equal vigor when the time was right.

With the grace of a gazelle, he leaps up and with one hand swings himself up onto the roof of the clinic where he instantly disappears back into a darkness nearly as black as his soul.

***

Max, Brooke and Vinny continue down the flickering hallway slowly and deliberately. Tension is high and Max is careful not to keep his finger on the trigger lest he prematurely blow someone away that may be hiding from the biters in the dark folds of the building.

They approach the first door on their left and pause before entering. The door is windowless and with the exception of the letter ‘A’ it contains no markings or labels. Max raises the shotgun and gives Brooke a nod. She reaches for the handle and turns it slowly, being careful not to alert anyone or anything inside before Max makes his entrance. As soon as the door begins to open inward Max gives it a kick and steps through panning left and right with the 12 gauge.