Petrol Wonderland

Seven | No More Games

Blake's knuckles bounced off the glass with an energetic THUMP.

Cleo's head shot up in surprise at the noise. The rabbit-man, meanwhile, paused his scraping immediately, as if he was an automaton and somebody had turned him off. The thing stood motionless, mid-action, its 'whiskers' swirling about in the breeze.

Blake drew back her arm and smacked the glass again.

"What the fuck are you doing?" hissed Cleo from behind.

She knew it was crazy. But she didn't care. Didn't stop. Instead, she continued to smash her fists into the cool glass and felt it reverberate beneath them. A guttural scream rose within her as she pounded repeatedly at the fragile material.

"FUCK YOU!" she wailed, mustering up every ounce of energy she had and sending it racing through her vocal cords. "NOT SO BIG AND SCARY NOW, ARE YOU? YOU BETTER RUN, BUDDY. BECAUSE THE COPS ARE COMING. YOU HEAR ME YOU PIECE OF SHIT? DO YOU HEAR ME THROUGH THAT THICK, UGLY HEAD OF YOURS? YOUR STUPID GAME IS OVER. IT'S OVER."

She stepped back, her energy spent. Her lungs heaved for air and she hunched over, gripping her knees.

"Holy shit," said her co-worker from behind. From the sound of clattering and skidding, it sounded like she'd lost grip of her phone.

For the first time that night, Blake found herself having a genuine desire to smile. However, it occurred to her that it was rather odd to smile in such a situation. After all, a drunk old woman was bleeding out a few meters away from her and there was still a pair of men in animal costumes lurking in the darkness outside. Not an ideal Sunday, to say the least. Yet, somehow, the smile still managed to creep its way onto her face.

She smiled. A mad, lucid smile. No sooner had she allowed the emotion to splash onto her face did Cleo set about ruining it.

"What on earth are you grinning about?" she snapped.

"He can't see us. And he can't get in."

She glared at the glass. "He's giving it a damn good go, though."

Blake frowned. Of course, it was just like Cleo to be annoyingly cynical and chip away at her convictions, even at a time such as this. "There's no way he can get in," she said, although this time her tone lacked the utter confidence of her previous sentiment.

She silently cursed herself for allowing Cleo's words to affect her only bout of positivity that night. After all, everything would be fine now.

The services were on their way. They would arrest the loonies outside and they'd end up in rehab. They'd whisk away the old woman in an ambulance with promises that 'in just a few days she'd be right as rain!' Veronica would take pity on the girls for having to put up with yet another stressful night shift and give her a few days off to recover. Or maybe she'd just quit. While relaxing in the spa with her boyfriend, she'd read in the papers that the old woman's son had been found without so much as a scratch.

Everything would be fine. She just had to believe.

The grin returned to her face.

That was when the rabbit man moved. The slight motion ruined her mood instantly and was more than enough to drain away her smile. She'd forgotten he was even alive. A real, living, breathing stranger standing on the other side of the glass. Aware of her presence and with motivations she couldn't understand. Someone she couldn't ever predict.

One again, the man reached a hand inside of his suit. Deep down into the space around his upper leg. He rummaged for a moment as if there were far too many items buried in his suit to possibly count. After what felt like forever, he seemed to have found the object he desired. She edged away from the glass tentatively as he brought it slowly to the surface.