“Yeah, I can see what you’re doing, but I’m drawing a ‘no comprende’ card here, homeboy,” Trent whined. “Someone’s got to protect the ladies from this creature, and if you’re not man enough to take action, then-”
“For once in your life, just shut up,” Bobby said through clenched teeth. “Just shut … the hell … up.”
Trent viciously snapped off a mouthful of beef jerky and scowled as Bobby tugged the end of a grimy orange extension cord. In the dusty driveway in front of the gas pumps, an unconscious Erik sat neatly bound to the weathered chair. His ankles were tied securely to its wobbly legs, and his human arms were stuffed through the slats of the back and bound behind him. From there, the cable looped back around, tying his superfluous rodent limbs together in a bundle that hung limply in his lap.
Bobby knotted the end of the cord around the mutant wrists and stepped away, rubbing the backs of his own wounded arms. The blasted shop light had managed to dig two gouges in his forearms from elbow to wrist bone, but his defensive posture had put the rifts relatively harmlessly up their backs. A Dixieland medley of red, white, and blue bandages dressed his wounds, finishing off the remainder of the Confederate flag that once flew proudly by the front of the store. A series of mismatched cartoon Band-Aids held together the fresh, lamp-induced gash that ran across his forehead. He waddled back across the wide driveway, grabbed a bag of corn chips and a can of purple soda from the backpack, and plopped down next to Vivian.
“Ahh, yes, come to Bobby,” he hummed, tearing open the bag. “I think this is the longest that I’ve gone without Fritos in my life.”
“No shit?” Sherri said through a mouthful of waxy chocolate cake. “You’d never know it by looking at you, fat-ass.”
“Cut it out, you two!” Vivian interrupted. “This is serious! What are we supposed to do about Erik?”
“He’s not going anywhere,” Bobby said, nudging Vivian’s bag of Cheetos with the back of his bandaged arm. “Just relax and get some calories in your system. We’ll see what happens when he wakes up.”
“When he wakes up?!” Trent squawked. “Listen to me, people! I’m telling you, when he wakes up, he’s going to be just like that kitty cat from Hell! The last thing you ever hear is gonna be me saying ‘I told you so’ when that thing comes to and starts putting a fresh set of holes all up in your asses!”
“Yes, Trent. Your opinion is duly noted,” Vivian sighed. “Not that I think that will stop you from continuing to voice it over and over again. ” Trent shoved another hunk of jerky in his mouth and grumbled to himself. Sherri sat on the antique Coca-Cola cooler in a cross-legged slump, perched between a half-eaten package of Hostess Sno Balls and a quart of warm beer. She tilted her head back and pushed her stringy hair out of her eyes, leaving a trail of sticky pink coconut shavings down its length. Two days of pollutant-riddled air had taken their toll on her blast-bleached locks, turning them from a snowy white to a grimy shade of yellow.
“I’ve got an idea,” she said, sliding off of the cooler. “Why don’t we quit screwing around and just wake him up?”
Before anyone could suggest otherwise, Sherri clomped to the bound lump of Erik’s form in her ever-clearing vision, stomped on the back of the wooden rocker, and dumped half the bottle of brew over his swollen forehead.
With a loud, wet snort that sent a whiff of petrochemical stench into the air, Erik regained consciousness, thrashing against his bonds with a furious, choking cough. Sherri continued to pour the bottle over his head, the peeling flesh of her face twisting into a satisfied grin.
Erik thrashed his shoulders against the chair, desperately trying to escape the drowning flow of warm beer.
“Up and at ‘em, Sideshow,” Sherri sang. “If Trent’s gonna kill you, I at least want you to mess him up real bad first.”
Erik floundered and choked under the dripping foam. His immobilized hands scrambled at the back of the chair, unable to come to his aid. A draught of beer ran down his nostril and was violently choked back out of his dripping mouth.
“Sherri, stop it!” Vivian barked.
“Okay, hold on,” Sherri said, raising a finger. “Only half a bottle left.” In a sudden lightning-quick motion, Erik’s rat arms lurched upward in a tied-together mass, grabbed the bottle from Sherri’s hand, and hurled it across the driveway. Trent narrowly leapt out of its way as it smashed against the pavement where he had been standing.
“Ggglglgglgg! Grr! GrrRrrrawWWwg!” Erik roared.
“Did you see that? Did you see that?” Trent squeaked, pointing at the shattered glass. “Aw shit! You went and put the rage in it now, yo!”
“Auug!” Erik choked, eyes clenched against the dripping foam. “Whatsaggg?” His shoulders tugged impotently at his imprisoned arms. As if aware that their human brethren were incapacitated, the pair of clasped rat arms rose from his lap and swabbed his eyes with the backs of their furry wrists. Erik blinked furiously as his eyes cleared, revealing a vision of yellow claws and matted, beer-soaked fur.
“Man,” he coughed, “that stung like a son of aaaAaAaAAAaAAA!” He kicked out in a frantic attempt to scramble away from the gnarled paws that pressed against his face. With every thrust of his immobilized legs, Erik tipped the creaking chair away from the mutant hands, only for them to be shoved right back toward him on gravity’s return stroke.
“AAaaAaaaAaAAaa!” he screamed.
“We’ve got to kill it!” Trent wailed. “Kill it now! Before it kills all of us!” He snatched the sword from the front porch and charged at Erik with a terrified battle cry.
“Trent, no!” Vivian screamed.
Bobby made a spastic lurch to grab Trent but missed him entirely, slipped off of the step, and crashed clumsily to the pavement. Half a second later, Vivian’s long, powerful legs had launched her over the pile of her brother and within three explosive steps had caught up to Trent’s howling stampede. She leapt onto his back, taking them both to the ground and sending the sword skittering across the dusty blacktop. Vivian rolled onto her back in a fit of convulsive, gasping coughs.
“Damn, Vivi!” Trent moaned angrily, rubbing his bloody knees through fresh holes in his khakis. “This is seriously not the time to be jumpin’ a brotha’s bones!
You got to wait until after I slay the beast to express your gratitude!” Vivian’s sudden exertion had left her completely breathless.
“Don’t … you … touch … him!” she wheezed furiously.
Bobby scrambled behind the panicking Erik and slammed his foot down with a splintery crunch on the wooden rocker, arresting its maddened swing.
“Erik, if you understand the words I’m saying, quit wigging out before we have to kill you!”
” Kill me? Kill me?! ” Erik chirped hoarsely, the words scraping against the gasoline-burnt sides of his throat. “W … what the hell is going on here?!” Bobby stepped off of the rocker and backed away, leaving Erik slowly oscillating in the dust. As Erik took in the faces of the shocked onlookers, his rodent arms fell limp across his lap.
“We’re cool. Everybody be cool now,” Bobby warned.
Vivian pulled herself into a crouch and coughed violent, gravelly coughs that shook her slender body. Trent thumped on her back with his open palm.
“Breathe, Vivi, breathe,” he coached. “Don’t you worry, I’m here to look out for you, girl. I’ll keep you safe.”
Vivian pushed Trent away without looking at him and shuffled over to join Bobby and Sherri in an uneasy semicircle around the rocking chair. Sherri now held the sword slung over her shoulder.
“Dude?” Bobby ventured, leaning over Erik. “Dude. Are you okay?”
“Am I okay? Am I okay?! ” Erik whispered through a sandpaper larynx. “Do I look okay?! What the hell happened to me?!”
“I don’t know!” Vivian confessed. “I was just trying to help you, and this happened!”
“Trying to help me?!” Erik coughed. “You were squeezing the shit out of my ripped-up stomach!”
&n
bsp; “I was doing the Heimlich maneuver!” Vivian yelled weakly. “You were choking!”
“So you were trying to dislodge the fluid stuck in my throat?!” Erik rasped bitterly. “Very nice. You could have killed me!”
“She should have killed you as soon as you became one of them, ” Trent said coldly. “But your weak-willed, so-called ‘friends’ decided to bind you up instead of sending you to your final reward. People, people. Why are we prolonging this wretched soul’s suffering?”
“Whoa whoa!” Erik stammered. “I’m not suffering! I’m okay! Trent, you said it yourself! Humans are okay because we have souls! I have a soul!”
“Oh, I think not, Evil E,” Trent said smoothly. “You had a soul. I’m man enough to admit when I’m wrong. Heavy B had the right idea after all, yo. This ain’t about souls anymore. It’s about the toxic germs we breathed and the disinfectants in the blood. For real. Every one of us was drinking liquor on Judgment Day. Every one of us but you. ”
“I was drinking liquor!” Erik screamed. “I told you! I drank! I drank a lot! Tell him, Bobby! Right before work I had like, four Tequizas!”
“Tequiza?” Trent huffed, leaning aggressively into Erik’s face. “Does that even have alcohol in it? What kind of man drinks Tequiza? That stuff is little Mexican girl piss.”
Erik’s face crinkled as Trent’s stale, spicy meat breath rolled up his scorched nostrils.
“Look, will you just untie me?” he winced. “Seriously, I’m okay. ” Trent leaned in menacingly close to Erik, locking his bloodshot eyes in a cold stare.
“I think as long as I’m still in God’s image, and you’re a four-armed demon freak tied to a chair, I’ll be the judge of who’s okay, you abomination of-” Erik’s eyes narrowed angrily and his tied-up mass of rat arms swung violently upward, connecting with a crack to the bottom of Trent’s toothy jaw. Trent staggered away, clutching his mouth as the blood flowed from his freshly bitten tongue.
“Ow! Damn it! Son of a …”
Erik’s eyes widened and flicked over the shocked faces of the others.
“I didn’t do that!” he piped. “I’m sorry, Trent! I didn’t mean it! It just happened!”
“Well, that’s good enough for me,” Sherri shrugged. “Let him go. Anyone who wants to knock Trent on his ass can’t be evil.”
“I’m sorry; I’m so sorry!” Erik blathered. “It was an accident! I can’t control them!”
“Listen to him!” Trent seethed, pointing an agitated, bloodied finger. “He just said himself that he can’t control those things! If he’s not controlling them, then who is?!
”
With a seemingly choreographed leap, he snatched the sword from Sherri’s hands and thrust its pointed tip toward Erik’s chest.
“Y’all are letting your fond memories of what this thing used to be interfere with your duty!” Trent boomed. “This thing is not your friend!”
“I am your friend!” Erik screamed desperately. “Help me!” Bobby stepped forward and brutally shoved Trent out of the way.
“Quit being an asshole, you asshole,” he growled.
He wrestled the sword out of Trent’s hands and handed it back to Sherri.
“Thanks, Bobby,” Erik said with relief. “I knew you’d be on my side, buddy. Come on now, untie me!”
Bobby looked away.
“I’m sorry, dude,” he mumbled. “You know I can’t.”
“You can’t?!” Erik shrieked. “Why not?! You’re my best friend!”
“I know. That’s exactly why I can’t,” Bobby glowered. “We both know that’s exactly how this thing always plays out in the movies. Even though you’re obviously all freaked up, I untie you because you’re my best friend. Then when we least expect it you’ll be jumping out of the closet with glowing red eyes and a mouthful of bloody fangs. You of all people should know this. It’s your own logic, Erik. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?!” Erik yelled. “Well, sorry doesn’t cut it!”
“Don’t be sorry!” Trent boiled. “Stop being sorry! Stop thinking of that thing as if it’s still your friend! It’s over and you know it! He’s gone! We all knew that it would eventually come to this! That’s why we made a pact!”
“But I didn’t make a pact!” Erik wailed.
For a moment, everyone went silent, contemplating the echo of Erik’s shrieked words.
“He’s right, you know,” Vivian said softly. “He did refuse to be a part of our agreement.”
“You see?!” Erik squeaked hopefully. “This is exactly why you should never join a homicide pact! It never works out in your favor in the end!”
“Damn, woman!” Trent blurted in exasperation. “How can you still be on his side?! Look at him! He’s a monster!”
“But what if he’s not?! ” Vivian shouted. “We don’t know! We don’t know anything about these creatures!”
“I’m not a creature!” Erik hissed.
“We know something about them,” Sherri said leadingly. “We know that they glow blue once you kill them.”
“Homegirl’s right,” Trent agreed. “Let’s slice off his head so y’all can see how it shines.”
“Whoa whoa,” Erik interjected, shaking his head violently. “I don’t think that I can get behind this plan.”
“Oh alright, ya pussywad,” Sherri conceded, raising her sword. “How about we just hack off a big toe and see if it glows.”
“No, no,” Erik stammered. “I’m not on board with any plan that involves the words ‘slice,’ ‘hack,’ or ‘kill.’”
“Find another way,” Vivian said sternly. “This is not Salem, and it’s not 1692. We’re not going to have a witch trial here.”
“But that’s just what we’re dealing with, Vivi!” Trent said. “Don’t you see? The devil possesses his soul! Second book of Moses says, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’”
“Ha! He isn’t a witch,” Sherri laughed. “I know witches, and they’re way cooler than Erik. ”
“Don’t get yourself all boxed in on the Lord’s language, yo,” Trent said authoritatively. “A witch, a demon, a zombie, it’s all umbrellaed under the same scripture. Thou shalt not suffer a zombie to live!”
“Stop it, Trent,” Vivian snapped. “He’s not a zombie!”
“Vivi, he’s got arms growing out of his belly! Are you blind?! He’s a freaked-up bloodthirsty zombie!”
“He’s not a zombie,” Vivian’s steely voice repeated. “He’s a mutant. ”
“So what?! ” Trent barked. “They’re the same thing!” Vivian looked at Erik as his own rebuttal replayed in her memory. For once, she put away the encyclopedia of her mind and picked up its remote control instead.
“No, they’re not. Zombies are nothing but rotting, reanimated corpses. All they do is shamble through the night infecting people and eating brains,” she quoted. “A mutant can be evil, but it doesn’t have to be.” Erik’s lips stretched into a grin as Trent’s hands fell to his sides in frustrated disbelief.
“Where on God’s green Earth did you get that crazy-ass bullshit?” Vivian gave Erik a weak smile.
“I once got lectured by someone very close to the subject.” Trent snatched the sword back from Sherri and backed away angrily.
“But how do you know he’s not a zombie?” he sneered. “It’s not like you can just give him the First Response Early Zombification Test or something!”
“I can’t be a zombie!” Erik volunteered. “Zombies have no thought process!”
“Put a zip-zip on your lip-lip,” Trent said sharply. “This is a discussion for normals only.”
“No no,” Bobby said thoughtfully. “I think he might be on to something there.”
“Unbelievable!” Trent yelped, throwing his hands in the air. “Now you’re taking advice from the zombie?! ”
“From the mutant, ” Bobby countered. “He’s right. If he can still reason, then he’s not a zombie. What if we give him a series of carefully worded questions and statements and m
onitor his response?”
“That sounds like a reasonable idea,” Vivian agreed.
“Ha!” Erik laughed joylessly. “It sounds like a Voight-Kampff test! Are you trying to figure out if I’m a mutant, or if I’m a replicant, Rick Deckard?” Bobby shifted his eyebrows as the corners of his lips pursed into a grin.
“Congratulations, old chum. So far you’re one for one.”
“Oh no,” Trent argued. “We must be having duck soup for dinner, because I smell something foul, yo. Whatever the hell homeboy just said doesn’t prove anything to me. You can’t go speaking your own geek language and pretend like that makes him okay.”
“Trent has a point,” Vivian said. “If we’re going to do an interrogation, we should start with simple questions. You know, establish a credible baseline.”
“Me first,” Sherri squeaked. “Name every country in the world!”
“Um, okay,” Erik said, his eyes rolling back in concentration. “United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Haiti, Jamaica, Peru-”
“Wait, wait,” Vivian said, rubbing her eyes. ” Simple questions. Baseline. Like, what year is it?”
“It’s 1999,” Erik said. “As you can tell by the way that I’m partying. ”
“How much money do you have in your wallet?” Sherri asked.
“I don’t know-about fourteen bucks?”
“Can I have it?” Sherri continued.
“Uh, I guess.”
“Uh-uh. No,” Trent scowled. “Don’t go pullin’ out the payola. Let’s keep this legits, alright, E? No bribing the jury.”
“I wasn’t! She asked if-”
“What’s it like to be a damned creature?” Trent interrupted. “What are you feeling right now?”
Erik cast his eyes downward. “I’m scared,” he mumbled soulfully. “And also really, really hungry.”
“Hungry?” Trent repeated eagerly. “Hungry for what?”
“It doesn’t matter. Anything.”
“Anything? Like human flesh?! ” Trent thundered.
The Oblivion Society Page 28