Free One Blink From Oblivion by Mark Curtis Bullock

visible six-inch section of his spinal column serving as a makeshift handle.
    Brooke’s dread has grown to a fever pitch and is pushed pass breaking when Vanessa smiles at her and says, “Stay for dinner.” That guttural gargling of blood and flesh in her throat had the effect of nails on a chalkboard and set Brooke’s own spine and flesh to tingling and crawling.
    Vanessa speaks again, deliberately enunciating every word for the Maximum effect, “You were right Brooke. Nothing to worry about. I’ll provide for my baby.”
    Just then, Vanessa’s spandex top stretches outward from her abdomen. Vanessa pulls up the bottom of her shirt to reveal a grossly bruised belly with a clear outline of a tiny hand pushing desperately out from inside.
    “Oh my God,” Brooke yells out and tears of horror spring to her cheeks.
    The outline of the hand is followed by that of a face, and then a mouth can be seen moving beneath the taut skin of Vanessa’s midsection, masticating as though it intends to chew its way free. Vinny and Brooke stand spellbound, glued in horror to the spot that may soon become their deathbeds as their collective sanity continues to unravel before them.
    Vanessa, effortlessly raises her husband’s lifeless body to her stomach and drops her eyes to her mercurial abdominal skin while chanting, “I’ll provide for my baby…I’ll provide for my baby.”
    Her skin –stretched to capacity- begins to split just below the navel and a brownish gelatinous fluid spews forth, followed by the distinctive form of the tiny little mouth opening and closing like a fish struggling to breath. She presses the flesh of the baby’s dead father against her abdomen and sobs joyfully, “My baby…My baby… Now your father will provide too.”
    Brooke –now dizzy with fear and disgust- is reeling. Vinny’s bone crushing grip on her hand is the only thing keeping her upright. Suddenly they are again in motion toward the door. Her feet and legs are working completely independently from her brain. Entranced by the motherly joy and almost sexual satisfaction of her baby’s first feeding Vanessa does not take notice of Brooke and Vinny’s flight to and through the front door. They don’t bother with the porch steps. They instead make a leap down the lot of them and scramble to Vinny’s car.
    They have thrown open both doors and climbed inside before Vinny realizes, “I don’t have the keys.”
    “Check your pockets,” Brooke yells at him while franticly reaching across the car to check his pockets for him.
    “I left them on the kitchen counter,” admits Vinny with a dumbfounded look.
    “Don’t you have a hide-a-key or something?”
    “No, I was afraid someone might steal my car,” exclaims Vinny.
    Just then, he notices the reflection of the porch light in his side view mirror, apparently triggered by the motion of their escape in the waning light.
    He looks across Brooke and through her car window, to find Vanessa standing in the doorway and glaring down at them.
    She takes all of the steps at once and is car-side in the blink of an eye with bloody hands pressed against the glass of Brooke’s window. She presses herself into the glass and her belly makes a bloody smear across the window. As Brooke reaches to lock the doors, she sees the tiny tongue of a baby protrude through Vanessa’s reverse Cesarean section and lick a clean streak through the mix of blood and bile on the window separating them.
    Vanessa begins to rock the car back and forth while sweetly singing, “ Hush little baby, don’t say a word …”
    A loud crunching sound halts the sinister melody and Vanessa’s yellow eyes widen in pain and surprise as her knees buckle to reveal a shadowy figure gripping a bloody and dented flashlight behind her. It was Max. Vinny hits the auto unlock button on the door and Max piles into the back.
    “What about everyone else,” Brooke asks of Max.
    “All dead,” answers Max, “Let’s go.”
    “No keys,”