Read Online One Blink From Oblivion by Mark Curtis Bullock - Free Book Online

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