Chapter Five
Pamela didn’t know why the ground was vibrating underneath her, or what the loud windy roaring sound might be.
She wondered where she was. She wondered what day it was.
Then she suddenly remembered that Jim was dead, and her whole life seemed to collapse into bleak rubble. She remembered about Rodney. She supposed that she was in his car, maybe stretched out on the back seat, and he was probably driving her the rest of the way to—
No! She’d seen a deep hole in the middle of Rodney’s forehead. He’s dead, she realized.
She opened her eyes. She was stretched out on a seat, all right. But not the seat of Rodney’s car.
Pamela was in a bus – on one of those long cushioned benches where people sit just behind the driver, facing the aisle. The windows above the back of the seat were covered with yellow fabric that muffled the sunlight and gave the air a murky golden hue. The air felt warm, but not terribly hot. She guessed that the bus’s air-conditioner must be going.
She turned her head. The long seat across the aisle was empty.
Lowering her gaze, she looked down at herself. She was still wearing the cheerleader sweater and skirt. Most of the sweater was caked so thickly with blood that very little of its original gold color was visible. It was neatly arranged, however, and so was the skirt. Somebody must’ve taken care to straighten her clothes after placing her on the seat.
Someone had also cleaned her face, apparently. It had a freshly washed feel. Exploring it with her hand, she found no trace of stickiness. Not on her face, and not in her hair, which felt slightly damp. She checked her hand. There was no blood on it.
Someone had done a good job of washing her, at least from the neck up.
Looking past her feet, Pamela saw a couple of passengers in the first row of forward-facing seats. A man and a woman. They sat rigid and stiff, secured by safety belts that crossed their chests and laps. They both seemed to be gazing straight forward. They were dressed very well to be on a bus in the middle of the desert: the man in a jacket and tie, the woman in a flower-patterned dress.
This must be a charter bus, she thought. Maybe taking a church group on some sort of excursion.
Got lost on their way to the Grand Canyon? Besides, religious groups don’t usually go around putting bullets into people’s heads.
Then who just shot Rodney?
Pamela doubted if she’d been saved by either of these two people. They sat there like a couple of statues.
She nodded a greeting at them, but they didn’t respond. She turned her head. Across the aisle from the couple sat a kid. Maybe their son. About eight or nine years old, he wore a baseball cap, blue jeans and a T-shirt. Pamela tried to read the slogan on his T-shirt. Parts of a few words were hidden under the chest strap of his safety belt, but she pieced together a message that seemed rather odd: ‘I’ve been to Pits. It IS the Pits. Pits, CA, pop. 6.’
Though the boy seemed to be dressed like a normal kid, he sat rigid by the covered window, arms at his sides, face forward, and didn’t move.
‘Hi,’ Pamela said, hoping that her voice was loud enough to be heard over the noise of the bus.
The kid didn’t even look at her.
Real friendly people, she thought. Probably a religious group, she mused again, a bunch of holier-than-thou fanatics. Maybe they’re practicing a vow of silence.
Yeah, but somebody shot Rodney. Somebody saved my life. She sat up. Turning toward the aisle, she lowered her legs. The bottoms of her feet felt stiff and sore, so she eased them down gently against the floor. The rubber mat on the floor felt cool and smooth, a little gritty. She waved at the kid.
He ignored her.
So Pamela turned her head to the left. Just past the arm-rail of the seat where she’d been lying a metal partition rose from the floor to about the height of her shoulders. She supposed that it was there to shield the back of the driver’s seat, though the top of the seat showed – and so did the driver’s head.
He wasn’t wearing a hat. His black hair was cut so short on the back and sides that his scalp showed through. The close trim made his ears seem way too large. On top, his hair stuck straight up like the bristles of a brush. ‘Hello,’ Pamela said.
He didn’t answer.
‘Driver?’ she asked, raising her voice.
‘No talking, ma’am,’ he called without looking back. He didn’t sound angry, just like a man stating a plain fact.
‘What?’ she asked. ‘What do you mean, no talking?’
‘No talking to the driver while the bus is in motion. Company policy.’
‘Oh. Okay.’ She supposed it must be a safety rule. ‘Sorry,’ she added.
‘No problem.’
Pamela wondered if the bus company also had a rule against standing up while the bus was in motion.
Soon find out.
Leaning forward, she reached out for a shiny support pole. She clutched it and pulled herself off the seat. Pain surged up from the bottoms of her feet. She stood hunched over, clutching the pole, her mouth torn open in a silent outcry. The worst of the pain didn’t last long. She straightened her body. As she took deep breaths, she noticed that the window shades across the aisle appeared to be strips of yellow blankets. They were secured to the windows with broad silvery strips of duct tape. Real classy, she thought. What sort of bus is this? Probably one of those rat-trap death machines without any brakes – the sort you hear about when they crash in the mountains on the way to a revival weekend or Bible camp or something.
And the pilgrims get to heaven a little sooner than they expected. Amen.
Maybe we are on our way to a Bible camp. If we don’t crash and die first.
Moving only her head, Pamela looked toward the front of the bus. The brightness from the windshield made her squint. Ahead of the bus was a two-lane road through the desert.
The same road she’d been traveling with Rodney? She couldn’t tell. But it sure looked like the same desert.
She could see the driver’s face in the rearview mirror, but sunglasses hid his eyes. She nodded a greeting, in case he was looking at her. He didn’t react.
At least he’s not ordering me to sit down.
With his sunglasses and flat-top and the lean, rough features of his face, he looked like he ought to be a motorcycle cop.
A cop moonlighting as a church-bus driver. That’d be a good one. Might explain what happened out there with Rodney.
‘Hello?’ Pamela said.
The face in the mirror turned slightly. As patiently as before, the driver explained, ‘I can’t talk just now, ma’am. Not while the vehicle is in motion. It’s for the safety of everyone aboard.’
‘Okay. Sorry.’
The hell with it, she thought. Then she stepped to the center of the aisle, turned away from the brightness of the windshield, and peered toward the back of the bus. In the hazy yellow glow, she saw that many of the seats seemed to be occupied. She guessed that there must be fifteen or twenty passengers.
None of them talked. None of them moved, except for rocking and shaking a little with the motions of the bus.
What a lively crew, Pamela thought.
With so many passengers, however, there must be at least one who would open up and tell her what was going on.
Grimacing and flinching with every step, she hobbled down the aisle. The pair in the first seat didn’t even turn their heads as she approached them.
What’s the matter with these people! A few paces away from them, she saw what the matter was. She halted.
She moaned.
She grabbed the nearest support pole to hold herself steady, and heard herself mutter, ‘Isn’t this wonderful? Isn’t this just what the doctor ordered? What the hell is this?’
The couple hadn’t been ignoring her, hadn’t been snubbing her, hadn’t even known that she existed.
‘Dummies,’ she muttered.
The kid across the aisle was also a dummy. So were the two women sitting s
ide by side in the next row of seats. They looked like a pair of mannequins heisted from a department store. Maybe they’d been modeling casual wear at J.C. Penney’s. Both wore colorful outfits that looked cool and comfortable: knit pullover shirts, Bermuda shorts, knee-high socks and white tennis shoes.
Nobody sat across the aisle from them, but behind them was a male mannequin dressed in a pinstriped suit and tie.
From where she stood, Pamela could now see at least a dozen more passengers scattered here and there among the seats. Some sat alone, others in pairs. None of them moved.
They’re all dummies. Every last one of them. She felt goose bumps scurry up her body. They started at her knees and crawled up her legs and buttocks. They raced up her spine to the nape of her neck. Her arms and breasts went prickly. Her nipples squirmed and grew stiff. Her scalp crawled. Her legs began to shake.
Stop it! she told herself. It’s not that big a deal! Last night was a big deal. Rodney was a big deal. This is nothing. It’s just creepy.
That’s the thing, she thought. It’s no big deal, but it’s too damn weird. Creepy, eerie, spooky. Like something out of an old Twilight Zone – but no big deal.
No big deal, my ass. I’m the only real person on a busload of dummies!
Maybe I’m dead, she speculated. Nice thought.
Maybe Rodney killed me, after all, and this is some sort of soul-bus taking me wherever it is that souls get taken to. Like the train in that song – the one that’s ‘bound for glory.’ Only this isn’t a train, it’s a bus. The Glory Bus.
‘Bull,’ she muttered.
I’ve gotta stop scaring myself, she thought, and find out what’s really going on.
Pamela looked over her shoulder at the bus driver. Won’t say much, but at least he’s real. My old buddy Charon. Ferryman of the dead.
‘Cut it out,’ she muttered, and faced the rows of mannequins. ‘There’s got to be a logical explanation,’ she whispered, and felt a smirk come to her face. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Sure. That’s what they always say: “Gotta be a logical explanation.” Yeah, a logical explanation, all right – el shitto has hit el fanno, that’s the logical explanation.’
She decided to take a closer look at her fellow passengers, so she continued toward the back of the bus. As she hobbled along, she spoke softly to them. ‘Anybody here not a dummy? Speak up. Anybody wanna offer me a logical explanation as to what you’re doing here? Nothing about me being dead and on my way to hell, please. And I don’t want to hear that the driver’s a lunatic, either. Understood? Perhaps he’s a traveling dummy salesman? How about it? Anyone? How about you?’ she asked the final passenger.
This one wasn’t sitting up like the others. He was stretched out on the long seat at the very back of the bus. Approaching him, Pamela could see only his legs. He wore dark trousers and his feet were crossed at the ankles. The back of the seat in front of him blocked the rest of her view.
‘Hello?’ she asked. ‘Cat got your tongue?’ What if this was a real person?
Fat chance, she told herself. Then she stepped past the last seat-back, looked down through the murky yellow light and saw that she’d made a good guess: the figure lying on his back, feet crossed, was a real person. She figured out who he was when she saw his bloody shirt. Then she recognized the neat round hole in his forehead, and the pit where his eye should’ve been.
He looked as if he’d been laid out to dry a while ago, after being dipped headfirst into a vat of blood. Pamela gagged. She turned away from the body. She began staggering down the aisle, hurrying past row after row of mannequins.
He brought Rodney! Why did he bring Rodney? What’s going—?
A sudden braking of the bus shoved Pamela forward. About to fall, she stretched out her arms and grabbed seat-back handles on both sides of the aisle. From behind her came a thudding sound. She looked back. Rodney had been thrown to the floor.
The bus continued to lose speed for a while, then made a right turn that thrust Pamela sideways. She kept her grip on the seat handles and stayed on her feet through the turn.
Now the bus was on an unpaved road. Pamela saw the strip of rough dirt through the windshield. And she felt it. The floor shuddered under her sore feet. The whole bus bounced and lurched and vibrated. It shook so hard that she thought it must be falling apart. She pictured it leaving a trail of pieces to mark its passage: a tailpipe, a hubcap, a muffler, a drive shaft.
From what she could see through the windshield, the terrible road seemed to be leading toward nothing except more mesquite and cacti and brush, ravines and jagged dry piles of rock and a mountainous area that looked just as desolate as the desert. Not taking me to a town, she thought.
Maybe he’s got a house out here, same as Rodney. A fun house where he’s gonna have the same kind of fun with me that Rodney planned. She twisted her head around. Rodney was still on the floor. His body seemed to be trapped, facedown, between his seat and the legs of the seat in front of him.
Going nowhere.
The feel of the floor pounding against her feet made Pamela want to cry.
Gotta sit down.
She belonged on the long seat near the front of the bus. That was where someone – most likely the driver – had put her, so that was where she ought to be. Besides, it was a good distance from Rodney’s body. When she let go of the seat handles, however, the lurching bus tossed her forward. She landed on her hands and knees in the middle of the aisle.
She supposed she could crawl to the front. The hell with that, she thought.
Pamela climbed onto the nearest empty seat. This entire row was clear of mannequins. Across the aisle a couple of bundles were piled on the seat. One of them appeared to be a sleeping bag, while the other was a large fabric satchel with handles. The driver’s stuff, she supposed. He must sleep on the bus. Maybe it’s his home, and he lives on it with his dummy collection.
Now he’s collected me.
He saved my life, she reminded herself. Someone did, anyway. And the driver seems to be the only person around who might’ve done it.
She guessed it was possible that her rescuer had shot Rodney and vanished, that the bus had come along later and that there was no direct connection between the two events.
That didn’t seem terribly likely, though.
The driver almost had to be the one who’d saved her. Leaning on the arm-rail, she peered up the aisle. All she could see of the driver was the back of his head.
What if he’s not a good guy? she wondered. He’s prowling around the desert with a bus full of dummies and probably some sort of high-powered rifle. Pamela hadn’t seen the gun but he must’ve fired it from awfully far away; the bullet had struck Rodney a long time before she’d heard the shot. The guy has to be weird, she thought. But he saved me. Then again, maybe he wants to have me. Let’s face it, what’s he doing on a dirt road like this? He should be driving me to the nearest town, not deeper into the desert.
‘This doesn’t look real good,’ she muttered.
Chapter Six
They were in a canyon when the bus finally stopped. The driver reached out to his right and shoved a handle, opening the front door. Then he shut off the engine.
To Pamela, the sudden quiet seemed enormous.
The driver stood up and turned around. Pamela stared at him.
She felt scared, but weary. They’d spent at least half an hour on the rough dirt road. She’d worn herself out with wondering about the driver, imagining all the things that he might want to do with her, and trying to figure out the best course of action for herself.
Her most recent conclusions: he might or might not intend to rape or murder her; she shouldn’t try to attack him or escape until she knew more; by then, it might be too late; sit tight and see what happens; he might be a friend; if he turns out to be a bad guy, fight him to the end.
He started walking up the aisle. Oh God, here he comes.
He wasn’t a large man like Rodney. Medium height, and slim. He wore a gray sho
rt-sleeved shirt. It was tucked into blue pants that were cinched around his waist with a black leather belt.
A bus-driver uniform?
Why isn’t it all rumpled and sweaty and bloody? Pamela wondered. It would have to be, if this is the guy who hauled Rodney into the bus. Not to mention hauling me in too. But his uniform looked neat and clean, as if he’d done nothing more than sit behind the steering—
Almost here. Get ready.
The driver walked past Pamela as if he hadn’t noticed her. She couldn’t believe it. She twisted in her seat to watch him. At the back of the bus he crouched and took hold of Rodney’s ankles.
Go!
She lurched out of her seat and raced down the aisle. The nearest exit was the side door, just ahead and down a short stairwell to the right. But it was shut and might give her trouble, so she ran past it. Dashed for the open front door. Each footfall made her wince with pain. She gritted her teeth and tried to run faster.
‘Don’t fall and hurt yourself,’ called the driver.
When she reached the front she glanced back. He wasn’t even watching her. He was still at the rear of the bus, bent over, dragging Rodney’s body into the aisle.
Doesn’t he care that I’m getting away? Maybe not. Maybe he doesn’t care because he knows I can’t really escape. Nowhere to go.
We’ll see about that, Pamela told herself. She charged down the steps and leaped off the bus. The desert heat slammed down on her.
Here we go again, she thought. She started running toward the nearest high ground, a rocky butte not too far away. If she could get up there, she might be able to pull a disappearing act among the boulders and crevices. At its foot she looked back.
No sign of the driver.
Pamela couldn’t see inside the bus because of the makeshift yellow curtains on the windows. But the side door was still shut and the driver wasn’t at the front door yet. She didn’t know whether the bus had an emergency exit at the very back. She hadn’t noticed one there, but she’d been awfully distracted at the time because of Rodney’s body.
School buses usually had an emergency exit at the rear and this looked like an old, medium-sized school bus. It wasn’t painted like one, though. Only the curtains were yellow. The rest of the bus – what Pamela could see of it – was painted a dull gray color that reminded her of how a lake looks on a gloomy overcast day.
The Glory Bus Page 4