Obey Gravity, it’s the Law

a short horror, science fiction story with elements of body horror

Nightfall looms. The sound of raindrops thump against the windshield of my Ford pickup—pit pat—wipe—pit pat—wipe. The traffic lights refract off the raindrops, illuminating the streets, the buildings, and the windshield in dripping neon paint. I crank my window down just enough so that my Pall Malls have room to escape. Little droplets ricochet off the cracked window, bouncing onto my skin and washing away the factory soot from my pores. Any other day this would be mundane, but today this soot is an endangered species, clinging to life until it meets its inevitable end, never to dirty my skin again. I let the idea sink in, breathing in deep—my chest rising—releasing the smoke slowly as my chest deflates—Screeeeeech—a ragged, off-white, hideous block of a Honda swerves in front of me. The sudden sound choking me, turning me red as I try to hack out the last smoky remnants from my lungs. I slam on the breaks and my truck fishtails. I thrash my steering wheel about until the truck bed re-aligns.

“You fucking—cough—cough—cough—moron!” I scream as my eye’s tear up.

All I can see is his bumper sticker ‘Obey gravity, it’s the law’ slapped crooked on the rear window of his van as he speeds ahead, disappearing into the void. Real cute I thought. I swear it’s always these people in their foreign cars that can’t fucking drive. First they put me out of a job. Then they cut me off on the road. I shake my head, finding relief in the fact I’ll be home in just a minute: to my dog, my TV dinner, my toilet, my cot, my porno stash, and my relentless self-pity.

But then like a miracle: I can’t even believe it. The sky parts and a big ol’ ray of sunshine beats down on a van. A van parked right in my spot. The spot that I pay good money for—another endangered commodity. I shouldn’t be surprised since people regularly park in it, but today I have to walk a half a mile in the pissing rain, so I’m not much in the forgiving mood.

I decide to park at the hardware store across the street. It’s technically illegal but it’ll save me some torture. I flip up the collar of my black leather jacket, tucking my head as far as I can and jumping into the downpour. I leap over the puddles to avoid getting my work boots soaked, and in the true spirit of slapstick comedy my foot snags the curb and I flop into a puddle the size of the Atlantic. It’s so funny I can almost hear a laugh track “Hahahahaha.”  I lay for a minute, soaking in the farcical levels of humiliation. My idea of a night of reprieve rinsing away, as the rain pours over me, flowing down the street, and sinking into the sewer.

I sit myself up, and there it is: the bumper sticker. ‘Obey gravity, it’s the law,’ sitting in my parking spot. My spot. The one that I paid for. The bumper sticker that choked me. The bumper sticker that soaked me. The bumper sticker that porked me. The culmination of all shit that’s ever been kicked in my face, scooped up and sculpted into this monstrous symbol of Honda patented cruelty. Destined to haunt me ‘til the end of my days.

I check to see if there’s anyone watching. I pull out my multi-tool, and flip out a knife, shoving it into the window-door crease, shimmying it about. The lock pops up and I swing the door open, the stink of battery acid wafts past. I plug my nose and I tear open the glove compartment, looking for something I can set fire to or take a piss on—for the purpose of self-expression. A dozen coiled up schematics come pouring out onto my feet, some bouncing off onto the sidewalk. I peak into the back and there are hulking black crates strapped into the seats like children, wires running between all four of them. A blackish-green bile oozes from the bottom of the crates, soaking into the gray cloth seats. I’m starting to think this freak wouldn’t even notice if I left a rotting corpse in his car. A yellow bucket sits in the aisle with a black hazard sticker on its side. Various items are strewn about: a pair of long white plastic gloves, goggles, wire-cutters, stray pieces of newspaper, a flashlight, a rope, and a hack-saw. Behind them is a large black tarp covering the trunk space.

“This shit can’t be safe.” I murmur to myself.

“Was any great discovery safe?” says a soft voice behind me.

I slam my head on the roof of the car. Red hot pain pulses down along the cracks and grooves of my brain. I turn around and three bone thin men are standing in front of me—scratch that—one bone thin man is standing in front of me. His hands on his hips. His beak-ish nose sitting right between my eyes. He aggressively pushes his glasses up his thin bridge with a single finger and for a split second his eyes peak over at the door and then dart back. He’s probably looking at the spot where my knife had cut little hairs on the door crease. Although, paranoia might be getting the better of me. He brushes his corduroy sport coat with his hands—he looks like a child wearing his father’s hand-me-down.

“May I assist you with something?”

I groan “You left a light on . . .”

“Oh?” He says in a facetious manner.

“I was just—.”

“Oh no, please, you don’t have to explain. My van has a propensity for inspiring curiosity. One could say curiosity is the molecular building block of this confounded creation.” He says, slapping his hand on the hood of his van as if it were a good friend’s shoulder.

“She’s not a looker, but looks can be deceiving. Who would guess Shirley was once the first energy powered van?”

This guy is so obsessed with his van he named it Shirley, and I don’t want to know what extra-curricular activities he might share with Shirley, but for now I’m content with Shirley taking the spotlight off me. I feel terrible, to think moments ago I was going to set fire to this harmless nerd’s precious science project. How cruel, I thought. It’d be like setting fire to his wife.

“So that explains those dirty crates in the back-seat.”

“Yes, those would be the batteries.” He scans my clothing, his head looking me up and down “You’re soaked, you poor devil. Why don’t we continue this conversation over a few drinks?” He gestures into the van. “On the way there, I’ll give you a tour of some of the more clever features.”

This guy is trying so hard to hang out with me, he’s either lonely or he wants to bed me, but either way I don’t think I can stand another minute of him. Despite the pity weighing over me, I can’t get over his moth-ball odor, his obsession with his van he calls Shirley, or his remarkable likeness to an anorexic Big Bird.

“No, thanks. I’d love to but I should really get going” I smile, bowing my head a little bit.

“I insist.”

“Uhhh.  . . Nah, I should get going.”

I head out of the van, but he shifts his tall spindly body into my path.

“You know; most people lack curiosity. It’s a rare quality” He smiles. I try to walk around him but he strafes again into my path.

Disingenuously I say “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. . . But hey, it’s been nice talking to you—” Tooting his horn a little so I can speed up the good-bye process.

“Although! I think if I were to tell my friends at the ‘police station’ what you did, it might just spark a little more curiosity in the world. Would it not?” His smile widens and everything goes silent. I glare into his eyes but I can’t quite see them because of the way the light is reflecting off his lenses.

“. . . Are you kidding me?”

“One might say it’s my duty as a man of science to report you.”

“I’m just messing with ya!” He shouts in the same exaggerated way. “You catch on fast! I’ll give you that, but I didn’t mean it that way. I promise I don’t bite!” He makes a lame impersonation of a rat with his teeth and he makes his hands like paws.” I’m Jayce by the way.” He smiles and holds out his hand.

“It’s Bob, and you better not pull some shit like that again, okay?” I say, shaking his hand. “Unless you want to get knocked the fuck out.”

“I’m so sorry, Bob, forgive me. I guess I get a little pushy when I’m lonely. You see, my wife. She passed away just this last year and ever since I haven’t had the gumption to talk to anyone. I guess when I saw you looking through my stuff. I just thought that. . .” He exhales sorrowfully “That maybe I found someone I could talk to. . . A friend.” He droops his head and puts his hands in his pockets, swinging his foot around like a child.

Now I just feel sorry for the poor bastard. He might be a little strange, but we’re all going through the same shit. The meat-grinder. I got fired today, but hell that’s nothing compared to losing someone you love.

“I’m sorry to hear that, how did she go?”

“How about this, I’ll tell you on the way?”

I stop and weigh the ideas in my head. I wasn’t going to do much anyways. I mean, I do the same shit every night and I could use a few beers. Maybe some Labatt. Or a Molson.

“The drinks are on me tonight.” He says holding out his arms and tilting his head.

“Alright, fine. Do you at least have an Advil or something? My head is on fire.”

“Yes there’s a water bottle and some Advil in the console.”

I sit down in the passenger seat. Shutting the door. His neck tilts forward and he skulks to the driver’s seat. He starts up the engine, but it doesn’t sound quite right. It doesn’t roar, it sounds more like a school bus full of children humming all at once. He opens up the console and hands me a bottle of water. I guzzle it down while the electric seatbelts buckle in.

“I have to ask, now that we’re more comfortable with each other. Why did you actually break into my van?” He turns and looks deeply into my eyes.

“It’s like you said, I was just curious.”

I smile, but he doesn’t smile back and an awkward pause permeates the van. I play with the wrapping on my water bottle, tearing little strips apart until it looks like it has tassels.

“So how did your wife pass?” I ask, breaking the silence.

“She just loved me so much . . . her heart exploded. Can you believe it?” He stretches his fingers out to mime an explosion in front of his chest.

“She had a heart attack?”

“nope.” He says straight-faced. “I’m bullshitting you.” He smiles devilishly.

“Why would you make something like that up?”

“I don’t know, why’d you make up that bullshit about ‘being curious’?” He stares into my eyes—not a single blink.

“Uhh. . . I didn—”

“I’m just messing with you!” He says, laughing manically. “Calm down, calm down!”

I smack my lips in disgust, slinging him my side-eye.

“How tall would you say you are Bob?”

“Uhh, I don’t know about 5’10?”

“Hmm. . . Mmkay. . . How much would you say you weigh?”

“Why?”

“Just curious.”

“Probably like 160. I guess.”

His eyes glaze over. The speedometer rapidly increases, and the car starts to raise its voice.

“Want to see something cool? Lay your arm over the console.”

I rest my arm against the console and it sucks my arm inside. I use all my strength to lift it out but it won’t budge. My heart starts to race and numbers start popping up on the screen next to the speedometer. I can feel little pieces of machinery rolling along my arm, pricking my skin and vibrating. My name pops up along with my height, weight, blood pressure, and heart rate. To my knowledge the numbers are pretty darned accurate too. It releases my arm and I yank it out.

“Holy shit. That was insane. Although, I’d appreciate a friendly warning next time ya’ dick.” I say rubbing my arm. “What else can this baby do?”

“It can fly through the rifts in time and space.”

“This thing can fly? For real? And this is all with electric power? I didn’t know shit like this was even possible.”

He looks over at me, and points towards the floor.

“Can you pick up that rolled-up paper by your feet?”

I pick up the schematic and lean it over towards him.

“No, no, I don’t want to see it, I’ve seen it a thousand times. Open it.”

I raise my eyebrows, and slowly un-coil the thin beige paper. Sketched onto it is the outline of a man with hundreds of little wires reaching out of his heart and traveling through his body, funneling to some sort of contraption with a big clock in the middle. There are dashes around vital sections of the body, the brain, the heart, the liver, the kidneys, and the genitals. Little scribbled cursive words fill the gaps, but it may as well be another language because I can’t make out a lick of what it says. Jayce’s eyes well up. He starts sniffling and rubbing his nose against his forearm.

“The truth is, my wife died because she believed in me. She knew my vision was true. I just made some slight—miscalculations.”

“You killed your wife?” I shout, completely taken aback.

His tone becoming a little testy he says “No, I said I made miscalculations. There’s a big difference semantically!”

He gestures to the tarp at the back of the van with his thumb, keeping his eyes on the road the entire time.

“Go see for yourself, I know seeing is believing for most folks.”

I apprehensively climb over the seats to the back. I lift my shirt up over my nose and I yank the tarp away. A stinking, hairless human body is strewn across the wall of the trunk. Its skin is wrinkled and its boney arms are suspended up against the wall by steel fasteners. Wires are sticking out from everywhere on its body and they’re being fed into the oozing crates. They look like the tiny veins of a leaf, cascading down the van’s interior. I begin to gag involuntarily as the body moans, and its eyes roll up to mine, its lips shape themselves into a word. “Help.”

“It drains people like a battery, I just can’t figure out how to recharge them!” Jayce screams.

I dig my hand into my pocket grabbing my multi-tool. I flip the knife open and I begin to rip through the wires. The lights start to go haywire, and the walls begin to shake and pulse like they’re alive while the haggard body begins to scream bloody murder.

“Bob, what the fuck are you doing?” Jayce says, frantically trying to watch the road and see what I’m doing at the same time.

I start running at him, knife in hand—but I’m starting to feel kind of peculiar. My vision is a little hazy, and my head is sweating profusely. My legs start to feel like wet noodles against the floor. I look over at my empty water bottle, wondering if it’s possible that he preemptively spiked it with something or if I’m just too woozy from the stench of the dying body I just un-covered. Nah, there’s no way he could’ve planned that far ahead, I think. I hope.

My body falls hard against the floor like a sack of potatoes. I can see under the seat, there’s a little pile of photos—my vision gets blurrier—they’re photos of me. Shots of me at the factory, shots of me naked from my bedroom window, shots of me walking down the street in the morning, shots of me on the toilet—until my sight goes completely black and my body goes limp. I can hear the pitter patter of the rain against the ceiling as my senses slowly fade into nothingness.