“What do you mean, 'put some more clothes on'?” she shouted angrily at him. “I mean that every man out there is staring at you!” he replied hotly.
He saw out of a crack in the lid (what was he doing in a box? He would work it out later, he supposed) that what had just left his throat was diving at a pretty blonde man, who was being manhandled by three others. They blindly stabbed at him, leaving handsome welts across his skin where they slapped him and penetrated him. He felt that he should worry some about this. The boy was pushed up against the lid, his eyes wide and staring, cord wrapped around his throat. Sparks spat at his face from a larger, broken wire, and Russell decided that that probably constituted a fire hazard, under section 3A plural Z alpha. Being a public safety inspector sure did have its used. Now that he knew it was hazardous to have that sparking mess right near him, and he could tell from the little light that there were other people here as well (he must get their names and meet up sometime for brunch). He lifted the lid slightly, and pushed the wire out. It flopped onto the ground and out of sight.
Using the light, Russell turned to see who he was with.
That face. That smug, smiling, sliming, vitriolic, punchable, fucking piece-of-shit face, he recognised it. The tall guy behind him, with his hulking, child-grabbing muscles, shining with grease or.. petrol, or something. And the one outside – he who left him alone at his house, told him not to bother coming along, walked away with Lester to leave him to his fate. He was with them again, his nightmare-bringer bastards. He remembered Melanie, that crow-bitten corpse lying in some rusted dust-bowl somewhere. If it weren't for them... she would still be..
He screamed incoherently and launched himself at Lester, punching him again and again, straddling him, his mouth getting bloody as his fist landed on his face again and again. He could see that smug face deforming little by little as he worked at it, in a mad, vitriolic rush to hurt anything. His arms were bound to his sides once again by Dresden, the hulk who came up behind him. He felt bound, pressured, his arms unable to move, like
like working in an office all his life
like the coffin they were in had snapped shut. He exploded, imploded, writhed about, gnashed his teeth, anything to get out of the suffocating, choking, penetrating hold he found himself in. Dresden pushed him to the floor, hard, so he felt his face chalking up against the floor. Squinting, he halted his assault. He felt like a baby, writhing about so. Lester bent down so he could speak to Russell.
“If we let you up, will you stop?”
Agh! How the hell could he be so reasonable after he killed Melanie! If bones didn't decay in rust they would be there forever, as a reminder of all that he had and had lost. He thrashed his arms, trying to get Dresdens massive palm off him. What, they'd taken his daughter, did they want a clean job of it or what?
Lester sighed melodramatically, rolled his eyes and looked back at Russell. “Listen. We need to get out of here. We're gonna take you with us. Are you gonna co-operate, or are we gonna have to knock you out and carry you out like the prissy bitch you're acting like?”
Russell stopped a moment, glared a moment at Lester. He saw no kindness in that face, even if it was trying to be nice, it was like putting pig skin back over a skull – you knew the difference before you even saw it.
“Fuck you, murderer.” He spat.
“Goddammit.” Lester said, and nodded to Dresden, who, with but the slightest apprehension, smacked the back of Russell's head, and he fell cold.
Sebastien fell down, with but two of wires still chasing him. Good thing was he found out how to shut them up. Two wires further away lay struggling, their heads tied together. Sebastien stopped suddenly, surprising the two wires, and grabbed each by their neck-equivalents, before grinning sinisterly. He considered saying something witty but all the puns he could think of involved tying shoes, so he said nothing but knotted the two wires together. Their one head was much easier to stamp on, and he enjoyed watching the sparks splutter out immensely.
He lifted the lid on the coffin, and inside he saw Lester sitting by the guy they were rescuing, who was unconscious with Dresden sitting astride him. Belle was in the corner giggling, because they were all naked. Sebastien giggled too. Every time Lester shouted at him from now on, he could think of this and suddenly not care anymore. Even so, he was worried that the guy they were rescuing (they really needed to find out what he was called soon) wasn't moving.
“Is... is he alright?” He asked apprehensively. Lester looked up, and smiled at Sebastien. “Sure. He was full of life a second ago,” and in the light Lester had a shining black eye, “Doled me out this shiner.”
“You seem quite happy about it.” Sebastien replied, holding out a hand to get Lester out. “Well, I deserve it, I guess, in his head – didn't get a chance to tell him his daughter wasn't dead.” Lester thought a moment. “That would have been a good idea.”
Soon they were all out and, aside from Sebastien, all entirely nude. He was almost tempted to submit to peer pressure and join in. With that guy unconscious, the atmosphere was uncomfortably similar to an accident at an orgy.
Lester heaved a sigh. “Well, we're all alive, dignity aside. Thats something.” They all nodded. “Is there anything we can do now though?” Belle asked, but Lester waved her aside. “I was getting to that. I can't think of a way out which isn't a butthole.”
They all stopped and thought a moment.
“The fuel!” Dresden said suddenly.
“Sorry?” Lester asked, distractedly.
“The fuel... there was a river of it outside and theres a river of it inside.” He said, slowly, thinking his words carefully, as though he were sifting them for gold. “So maybe they're the same river?”
Belle slapped Dresden on the back heartily. “Thats a fantastic idea!”
“Not so, I'm afraid,” Sebastien replied, darkly. “Look.” He pointed at the end of the river, where it fell into a wall. There was a grate there. It looked sturdy. “Shit.” Lester said. “Well, Dresden it was a good idea till reality got in the way. Any more ideas?”
“Sorry,” said Belle, “But whats wrong with the mouth? Where we came from? We can climb out of it, can't we? I assume,” and here she looked at Sebastien, “that that's where we came in?” He nodded.
Lester shook his head. “We'd never get out alive. There's too many of those goddamned wires, we'd be skewered before we got past its teeth.”
He paced back and forth.
“We'd need a distraction. A really big one.” He stopped. They all looked at each other, and then at the spark-sputtering wire, and the fuel it sat next to. A smile spread across Lesters face. “Yes...” he whispered. “This is going to be one hell of an explosion.”
“Lester...” Belle murmered, without much conviction, to try and stop him.
The explosion ripped the babies iron gums apart. Its fuel-lined face crackled and burnt, the wires screaming as metal ground against metal. And up they leapt, Russell in a heap on Dresdens massive shoulders, all nude save for Sebastien. The red from the explosion could be seen as a dull red glow in the leviathans mouth. In an attempt to save itself, it choked itself with hundreds of wires, as they entered through the babies nose, ears, mouth, from underneath, through pores. The floor and ceiling began to retract back inside the baby. It was a perfect distraction – even the smokers were alarmed and busied with their big brothers fatal imitation, and cared not for the escapees. The river of fuel alongside them began to burn up, as the fire spread from the baby outwards. Flailing wires, slinging plastic everywhere, coating the floor and ceiling. Its eyes filled with flames and it began to melt. Its features, disconcerting before, became downright ugly as welts appeared on it, bits of it melted, as the mouth opened in a melted scream of anger. It realised that its food was escaping, and the wires spread out from what remained of the baby towards them. This time they burst right through the metal skin, piercing bullet holes in the skull. They ran, with the floor twisting out beneath them, and crushing walls ripping towards them, and the ceiling falling in. They ran even though they were running through a sphincter. The tunnel of twitching wires surrounded them, and got closer every time they blinked. They beat off sparking wires and the flames licked at their heels. Nothing was safe, nothing was ever safe and nothing would ever be safe. They were going to die here, in this nightmare of closing, choking, pressing, flaming darkness.
It was Lester who saw the light. The bright moon-lamp glow, hinting from the end of a passage-way that was wide enough to run down. He signalled down it and down it they barrelled, beating off the walls as they went. Obstacles stuck out at odd angles, but they collectively leapt, ducked, meandered, and otherwise got past them all – save for -
“Awgh!” Belle cried out. Her foot had sunk into a hole in the floor, which had closed up around her foot. Even as Sebastien looked, it managed to suck more of her in. Her face registered nothing but fear and shock as she slipped further in and gazed at Russell. She was surprised when he ran at her to free her. It took every ounce of bottle he had – he found it difficult to not notice the wall of tentacles advancing like a motorcycle gang towards him, with a sound of furnace apocalypse. He ripped her leg free, stamping on the wires around it, and she was alright, and they pressed their hands into each other, squeezed for support and ran. Around them, the forest exploded.
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