Vox Mentis

Yeah, we weren't late because both of us got the date wrong and we arrived a day early! It was a huge disaster, Mel!

"Yeah, that was because we fucked up the date and showed up early! You know how your parents hate early guests. That was one of the most embarrassing days of my life, Mel!" Melinda continues to stare at you.

well if she's not going to drive, YOU WILL
awkwardly attempt to drive the car from the passenger seat, it's the only way!

Seeing no other option, you lunge across her, groping for the ignition. "Where are the keys?"

"I don't have them."

"What?"

"I don't have them anymore." She puts a hand on your thigh. "Just sit with me a minute. Isn't the snow beautiful?"

"Mel," you say. "Mel."

There's a flash of dark movement and the door opens. Hands seize you. You fight the hands, but they are irresistible, and pull you out into the cold. You throw fists in all directions until something hard explodes across the back of your head, and then you're being borne on broad shoulders. Some time seems to pass in between, because it's darker. Pain rolls through your head in waves. You see blacktop and a flapping coattail. "Fuck," says someone, with frustration. "Forget the plane. They can't wait for us any longer. We screwed around with this idiot for too long."

"Forget the plane? Then what?"

"Other side of those buildings, there's a fire path, take us to the freeway."

"We drive? Are you kidding? They'll close the freeway."

"Not if we're fast."

"Not if we're...?" says the shorter man. "This is fucked! It's fucked because you wouldn't leave when I said!"

"Shush," says the tall man. They stop moving. The wind blows awhile. Then there's some running, and you hear an engine, a car stopping. "Out," says the tall man, and you're manhandled into a small vehicle. The short man comes in behind you. A disco ball dangles from the mirror. A row of stuffed animals with enormous black eyes smile at you from the dash. A blue rabbit holds a flag on a stick, championing some country you don't recognize.

The engine revs. "How'd it go with the girlfriend, Nick?" the tall man says. He steers the car around a pillar marked C3, which you recognize as belonging to the parking garage. "Are you ready to consider that maybe we know what we're doing?"

"This is a mistake," says the short man. "We should stay on foot."

"The car is fine."

"It's not fine. Nothing is fine." He has a short, angry-looking submachine gun in his lap. You had somehow not noticed that until now. "Wolf was on us from the start. They knew."

"They didn't."

"Austen-"

"Shut up."

"Austen fucked us!" says the short man. "She's fucked us and you won't see it!"

The tall man aims the car at a collection of low hangars and warehouse-like buildings. As you draw nearer, the wind picks up, flinging ice down the funnels made by their walls. The car shakes. You, jammed between the two men, bounce between one and the other.

"This car sucks," says the short man.

A small figure looms out of the gloom ahead. A girl, wearing a blue dress. Her hair dances in the wind, but she is standing very still.

The short man leans forward. "Is that Rain?"

"I think so."

"Hit her."

The engine whines. The girl grows in the windshield. Flower on her dress, you see. Yellow flowers.

"Hit her!"

"Ah, fuck," says the tall man, almost too quietly to hear, and the car begins to scream. The world shifts. Weight forces you sideways. Things move beyond the glass. A creature, a behemoth with searing eyes and silver teeth, falls upon you. The car bends and turns. The teeth are a grill, you realize, and the eyes headlights, because the creature is an SUV. It chews the front of the car and roars and shakes and runs into the brick wall. You put your arms around your head, because everything is breaking.

You hear groans. Shuffling. The ticking down of the engine cooling. You raise your head. The tall man's shoes are disappearing through a jagged hole where the windshield had been. The short man is fumbling with his door handle, but in a way that suggests that he's having trouble getting his hands to do what he wants them to. The interior of the car is oddly shaped. You try to push something off your shoulder, but it turns out to be the roof.

The short man's door squeals and jams. The tall man appears on the other side and wrenches it open. The short man crawls out and looks back at you. "Come on."