Free One Blink From Oblivion by Mark Curtis Bullock Page A

responds Vinny urgently.
    A bloody hand smacks Vanessa’s window making everyone jump, and a discombobulated Vanessa begins to rise.
    “Move!” Max shouts as he dives head first for the leg space beneath the steering wheel.
    With a quick jerk of some wires and a few false starts, the Audi is sputtering its familiar song.
    “Go!” cries Brooke as a fully upright and presumably more hostile Vanessa reaches for the door handle.
    She grips it tightly and appears to be preparing to tear it from its hinges.
    Vinny throws the Audi into drive and they speed off with an angry shriek from the tires -momentarily dragging Vanessa with them. Finally, her deadly grip breaks and she tumbles sideways down the street.
    Catching a glimpse of Zack’s dog at the side of the cabin as they fly down the road Brooke says, “What about Cujo?”
    “Fuck that dog!” answer Max and Vinny angrily and in unison.
    Vanessa can no longer be seen through the back window, perhaps due to the inability of the setting sun’s rays to penetrate through the dense forest canopy. But, more likely she and her half-born child have turned their sights on less gamely prey.
    Feeling that the danger has finally past, Vinny speaks, “I thought you were dead,” Vinny’s voice is gleeful and a little teary.
    “So did I,” responds Max with a little hesitation.
    “Well what happened?”
    “After she blocked the door I figured that was my chance to get a lick in. So I clocked her across her jaw. She didn’t even flinch when I hit her. I’ve knocked out grown men with less. It was crazy… As soon as I saw she wasn’t going down, I tried to catch up to you two, but she was too quick for me. Before I could reach the door, she was on me again. Just as I was sure she was about to snap my neck, a door opens and Sam comes out. I guess she was gonna’ make a run for it, but before she could take one step out of the room, Vanessa whipped around and flung her back. She flew back into the room and out of sight.”
    He stops momentarily to gather himself before continuing, “I ran to the kitchen to find a knife or something and then I remembered something I saw in the cabinet. There was a little ring down in the floor. I found it when I was looking for the phone. It turned out to be a latch for a trap door that led to the crawlspace under the cabin. As soon as I heard Sam’s screams I figured running at Vanessa with a steak knife was too little too late. So I opened the trap door and dove in. Once through, I closed the cabinet and the door behind me. A little while later, I guess after she was done with Sam, I could hear her sniffing around the kitchen like a dog. She was trying to find me but had no idea where I’d gone. I hid down there like a little bitch until I heard something dragging across the floor. When I looked out the crawlspace vent on the front of the cabin, I saw you two running out to the car. That’s when I came out, grabbed my flashlight and snuck up on her. She was so worried about you, she never even heard me coming.”
    “You’re a lucky bastard. Now can somebody please explain to me what the fuck just happened?” Vinny’s confusion is reflected in the eyes of his friends as he looks around the car at them.

Chapter 8 – Civilization
    The winding road is surprisingly free of traffic as they descend the mountain. After a whiplash forty-five minute drive with the Audi giving all it had, they arrive in town and find that it too is ghostly free of movement. They drive the streets slowly, looking for signs of life but nothing stirs; not one cat on the road, not a whisper of a distant dog’s bark on the cool night’s breeze, no couples looking for a romantic place to dine. Nothing but silence waits, silence and unnerving calm. It is as if time has stopped and they are the only ones left moving in this temporal-still.
    Every house has the curtains drawn and every business appears to be closed at this early hour. Even an ice-cream shop -that