Tony made Gavin's free hand pop in the cassette. A dark smile came over him as Mr. Big muted the bitch's cries. Great fucking tune, Gavin thought in Tony's voice, because he was Tony and Tony was him: he was turned on and tuned in: WTNY, All Tony All the Time.
Katie watched Gavin grasp the large shears in both hands, his wild, incredibly vacant blue eyes burning holes in her. "This is going to hurt me more than it'll hurt you," he promised, chuckling softly, because that was what Deanie used to tell him when she gave him the belt. Katie shook her head wildly, screaming through the gag, praying for the neighbors to investigate the loud music. But they wouldn't. They'd had plenty of opportunity to complain in the months before and said nothing.
Gavin opened the shears. Had the music not been so loud, she would have heard a squeal of rust. She cringed away as he moved toward her on his knees. His dirty hands quivered. He hesitated, and for a moment the burning hatred fell away and he fixed her with a look of pure sympathy.
The rusted blades located his target--and snipped.
The vile things plopped to the floor before the explosion reached Gavin's pain receptors. The shears fell from his hands and he reeled, staring down at the wet, oozing cavity he'd made at his groin.
His still-hard prick lay like a fat, wet slug in the loose soil. His testicles had oozed out of his scrotum, a pair of glistening pink orbs beside it. But Tony's cuttings were free--Gavin was free. The station had changed, and Tony Gleeson had left the airwaves for good.
Gavin looked up at Katie, and through her tears she saw him laugh, causing blood to spurt from the raw red and yellow meat where his genitals had been.
"Tony's gone now," he said, before his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed against the back of the driver's seat.
When the song ended, Katie's screams filled the silence.
BUS DRIVER MAN:
A DARK PINES STORY
THE LITTLE SHIT was at it again and Mr. McAllister figured someone oughta teach him a lesson.
Not me, though, he thought, pulling the big yellow bus away from the curb out front of Josie Stafford's house. Hell if I'm gonna do jail time just so some lunkhead kid gets his just desserts. The world don't favor heroes.
No, Mr. McAllister would play it by the book like he always did. He always followed bus routes outlined by the School Board, except during roadwork, in which case he'd notify them of any delay longer than ten minutes. He always kept his vehicle clean enough to cook a steak off the rad, and free of hazards, going so far as to file down sharp screw heads on the seats where the shop mechanic had stripped them. Always kept his class B driver's license up to date, and bathed and flossed daily. This last didn't matter so much to the School Board, but Mr. McAllister knew what it was like to sit for half an hour or more in someone else's stench, and so he made sure his breath was minty and his farts smelled like roses.
Mr. McAllister glanced in the rearview mirror. Only a few cars on the dirt road behind him. One of them, the maroon wagon, belonged to Dora Strathcomb. She followed behind the bus, and her son on it, every day. Crazy as a soup sandwich, but she had a tight little bod Mr. McAllister had taken pleasure in checking out once or twice. God only knew why she didn't drive the kid herself. Probably wanted to be sure he integrated well with the other kids, since the government had stepped in to stop her from home-schooling when they figured out he tested at a second grade level, a twelve-year-old kid. Not that slinking around while the kids took the bus to school helped get him situated among his peers. Probably got him beaten up more often than it didn't.
Somebody oughta teach Jessie Kinsmen a lesson, but it sure wasn't going to be Dora's son. Pipsqueak is what they used to call kids like him, and that was when they were playing nice.
"Oh, that little diaper-stain cocksucker Jessie Kinsmen," Mr. McAllister would tell the boys down at The Tap. "That little smoldering lunch sack of dogshit Jessie." He'd swallow a mouthful of Labatt's and add, "Did I say 'little'? That 'little' shit's bigger'n me. His poor mother must be looser than a landslide havin crapped that thing out her babymaker."
The boys knew this diatribe well enough not to interrupt. They'd just chuckle to themselves and nod their heads, sipping on their own wobbly pops. But there'd always be some bystander, some Tap tourist, who'd want to chime in with something like, "Yeah, but he's the Mayor's kid. So whaddaya gonna do?"
What am I gonna do? Good question, Mr. Knowitall. Mr. Nosey-Parker, prob'ly hyphenated with your wife's last name 'cause you're so goddamn progressive. He couldn't let that little--that big--dicksmear Jessie Kinsmen get away with the things he'd done just because he was the son of the most prominent person in town. Hell, I didn't even vote for Kinsmen. He can suck my dirty dick if he thinks he can tell me what to do.
Jessie Kinsmen was six-foot tall if he was an inch, and built like a fortified shitter. His fists were the size of ham hocks, and probably felt like it when they struck any kid on the back of the head who dared to sit in front of him. The one satisfaction Mr. McAllister got was when Jessie's big ginger melon would hit the roof of the bus going over the bigger bumps on Shiner and Dewlapp, the worst roads on their route with macadam older than Mr. McAllister himself. He'd slow down a little just so the big yellow bus wouldn't glide smoothly over the potholes, and grin wide in the rearview, savoring the sight of that big ginger head getting a solid thwack on the aluminum, Jessie himself screwing his eyes up against the pain so the other kids wouldn't get the idea he wasn't invincible and maybe they could defeat the giant.
Mr. McAllister would chuckle satisfactorily to himself, seeing that. But it was hardly enough.
Now Jessie was ragging on Mrs. Plimpton, the bus chaperone. Sure, she smelled a bit like baby powder and cat pee, and she dressed like a nurse on night duty with all those loose, flowery tops and her dirty yellow plastic shoes, the kind with the holes in them like peek-a-boo playground equipment, but she'd outlived probably everyone she would have seen in the early days of television, even plenty of folks she grew up hearing on the radio. She'd been around for the invention of nylons, and for the beginning of the Second World War. And this little--this big--heap of rat dumps scattered amongst little bitty grainy pellets of warfarin, who hadn't even been living when the goddamn digital watch was invented, thought he could shit all over her?
Huh-uh. No way, pal. Not on my Timex timepiece.
Problem was, you couldn't get away with anything these days. Last time Mr. McAllister had scolded a boy for kicking the back of the Freely kid's seat, one of the others had been videotaping with their phone (old Mrs. Plimpton had been alive when barely anyone had telephones in their homes, let alone their pockets), and had conveniently only caught Mr. McAllister's reaction to the abuse. He'd been written up for it, the School Board telling him they understood discipline had to be meted out, but if they didn't make an example of his, Mr. McAllister's, behavior, the PTA would shit a Brampton Brick.
That had been just fine with Mr. McAllister. The boys down at The Tap had joked he'd had to eat a hot bowl of shit, but what the hell did they know, working the pit--a union job. Sad fact of life is everyone wants to feed you shit, and you're gonna have to smile and choke it down at least some of the time.
And some Tap tourist, some nosey parker, had chimed in, "Why don't you do what that fella in Cleveland done? Kidnap the big dumb sumabitch and tour him around a few hours. Scare the pants off'm."
Of course, this had been before the "fella in Cleveland" was discovered to have been a mental fuckwit who kidnapped those poor girls. For a while there, Mr. McAllister had sort of looked up to the guy, being brave enough to attempt something so daring. Not that the kid likely deserved it, when you considered new evidence. But if any kid did deserve to be driven around against his will, it was Jessie Kinsmen. Hell, Mr. McAllister might be applauded.
But the incident with the Cleveland fella, who'd offed himself in prison since, had happened in the days before bus chaperones like Mrs. Plimpton, who was just now doing an admirable job ignoring
that diaper-stain--Oh fuck me, did I already use that one?--that fucktard Jessie Kinsmen.
Mr. McAllister pulled the bus up to the corner of Groonie Road and Van de Meer, where the Freely kid waited, backpack in hand. Janey Freely was one of the good ones, which probably meant she took holy hell at school. "Good morning, Mr. McAllister," she said cheerily, with a wide smile that showed all of her braces.
"Ain't it, Janey?" Mr. McAllister said. She smiled again, a shining million-dollar smile, and took a seat near the front while Mr. McAllister closed the door and pulled away from the curb.
Mr. McAllister had no delusions any of these kids respected him. Not like they were taking up a chorus of "Hail to the Bus Driver" back there. But most of them were friendly, and that was something. He'd heard horror stories from other drivers at the annual NTSA meetings, stories about fruit kicked deliberately under pedals, about wads of spit-covered paper shot at the back of their heads while they made sharp turns on a road with poor visibility, about curses and pulled hair and snot rubbed into their clothes. Jeezus Please-us lemon-squeeze-us, Mr. McAllister thought, if the kids on this bus tried to pull any of that bullpucky on me, I'da gone ballistic for sure.
"Mrs. Plump-ton!" Jessie Kinsmen said in singsong, emphasizing both plump and ton to be sure she knew it was a measurement of weight. Some of the others giggled at that, with an edge of fear to their laughter. "Missus Plummmmpton!"
Christ! He's grating on my last nerve. Lord, grant me strength...
"Why'nchta stop picking on her?" said a kid near the back of the bus, a voice so meek at first Mr. McAllister thought he'd imagined it. He glanced at the rearview, saw the Strathcomb pipsqueak sitting up with his slender fingers gripping the back of the seat in front of him, and Jessie Kinsmen wrenched his big freckled neck around to fix the small blond boy with a look of death.
Aw, kid, you gone and done it now, Mr. McAllister thought, though he had to admire the kid's courage, even if he'd signed his own death warrant. He'd keep an eye on the two of them on the way in to school, but after that he couldn't do much for the kid aside from pray the fat shit-stain didn't thump him too hard. The world didn't fare well for heroes these days. There were policies and shareholders to think about, parents who refused to parent their own children to appease. Every action micromanaged and disciplined and Twittered about and shamed on the internet so you couldn't squeeze out a fart without having to issue an official fuckin apology.
The children all scurried off the bus, favoring the Strathcomb kid with looks of sympathy, and eyeing Kinsmen like a wild dog as they passed. Finally it was just the four of them left on the bus, Mr. McAllister, Mrs. Plumpto--Plimpton--and Jessie Kinsmen and the Strathcomb boy, who both refused to leave until the other went first.
"You boys are gonna miss first bell if you don't skedaddle," Mr. McAllister warned them, trying to be as diplomatic as possible so as not to incur the wrath of the School Board.
When Jessie scowled, his fat face wrinkled up just like a sharpie dog, and Mr. McAllister had to wonder what sort of upbringing would make a Cujo like him. Probably got a good beating or two himself, with any luck. Ken Kinsmen looked like the type of guy who would beat a kid stupid, with his barrel chest and his perpetually rosy cheeks and his military-style hairdo.
"This isn't over," Jessie told the smaller boy.
Mrs. Plimpton harrumphed, watching the two boys through her thick, tinted spectacles, her whiskered lower lip eating the bottom half of her face.
"Go on to class, Jessie," Mr. McAllister said, causing Jessie Kinsmen's frown to deepen. He hauled himself out of his seat, shot another look of death at the boy in the back, then shuffled up the aisle toward the front. "What about him?"
"He'll be comin along soon enough, don't you worry." And don't make me put my foot in your ass on the way down those steps, Mr. McAllister thought, grinning wide at the notion. Jessie Kinsmen gave the smile a queer look, then he slumped down the stairs, one by one, the bus rocking slightly with each deliberately heavy step.
"Thanks, Mr. McAllister," the Strathcomb boy said, shuffling up with a hangdog expression.
"Thanks nothin. You lookin to get yourself killed, kiddo?"
The boy's eyes bugged out as if the idea hadn't even occurred to him. He peered out Mrs. Plimpton's window at Jessie, who threw one last baleful look at the bus before trudging up the cement steps to school. "I just couldn't take it anymore, is all. Why's he gotta be such a dick? Sorry, Mrs. Plimpton."
"Don't you worry yourself," Mrs. Plimpton said. "It was brave of you to stand up for me. Brave, and terribly stupid."
And wouldn't you know it, here was the widow Strathcomb, knocking on the folding door with a look of deep concern.
"Better not tell your mother," Mr. McAllister warned him. "Got a feelin she'll go ballistic."
The boy's eyes bugged out again, cobalt blue like his dad's had been.
Mr. McAllister put on his most charming smile and opened the door. "Why hello there, Dora. Aren't you a sight for sore eyes."
Dora Strathcomb stepped onto the bus without an invite. "Where's my son? Why isn't he in school?" She saw him then, her concern softening. "Dennie, sweetie, are you okay? What's the matter?"
Dennie Strathcomb gulped. "Nothing, Mom. We was just talking."
"Were talking," his mother said, then glanced at the two adults to see if they'd caught the mistake. After the government had forced her son out of home-schooling, Dora Strathcomb was very particular about how the two of them spoke in public. "He hasn't been any trouble, I hope," she said to Mr. McAllister, with a look that required a single answer Mr. McAllister was happy to supply.
"Go on to class now, Dennie," Mr. McAllister told him. "And don't you take any wooden pickles."
Dora gave him a weary smile before ushering her son off the bus.
Mr. McAllister and Mrs. Plimpton watched Dora walk her son to the doors. Even after they closed behind him the distraught mother seemed undecided whether or not her boy was safe, whether or not she'd done enough. She took a hesitant step up the stairs, then back down again. Another half-step and down. Finally she scurried off to her station wagon.
"She can't watch him forever," Mrs. Plimpton remarked unhappily.
No, she couldn't. And Mr. McAllister sure as shit wasn't going to step in.
❚❚
THE BUS PULLED up to the Gunny Street stop on another gorgeous day, the morning sun baking the black vinyl seats. Aaron Lesley, a gangly looking kid with a bad case of acne and the dirtiest, holiest t-shirt you ever saw on a kid outside of a PSA about Third World children, shuffled onto the bus with his head down like usual.
"Where's the Strathcomb kid?" Mr. McAllister said. "Where's Dennie?"
The tall boy shrugged, continuing on to his regular seat near the middle, far enough away from the front where the goodie-goods sat, and not too close to the back where the hotshots ruled their domain with an iron fist. Mr. McAllister decided to wait at the stop a minute. A peek in the rearview confirmed his suspicion: Dora Stathcomb's maroon wagon wasn't around, either.
"Maybe he's sick," Laura Engval suggested. What was funny about this kid was how close her name was to the woman who wrote Little House, which Mr. McAllister use to watch as a kid, and her resemblance to the little pig-tailed girl was pretty uncanny, too.
Maybe he was sick. That would explain why neither mother nor son were at the bus stop. Mr. McAllister glanced in the rearview again and happened to catch Jessie Kinsmen staring back at him with a big grin spread across his freckled face. Little piss squirt didn't even try to hide it.
Mrs. Plimpton raised a wrinkled arm to show Mr. McAllister her watch--digital, he noted--and Mr. McAllister nodded. He looked again at Jessie in the rear view, but Jessie was peering out his own window, aiming his smile at the sun.
"All right, then," Mr. McAllister grunted. "Can't wait forever." He dropped the transmission into gear and pulled the door shut, then drove on to the next stop and the next, greeting the kids with a smile as he alway
s did, glancing every so often at Jessie Kinsmen's big ginger head in the mirror. But the boy never returned his look, only beamed his contented smile out the window, like a Buddhist.
Troubled by that smile, Mr. McAllister hurried home after he'd dropped Mrs. Plimpton safely back to the retirement castle (she said nothing on the ride home, merely gummed the bottom of her face to death), and checked in briefly on his father while he was there (still a vegetable? check). He skipped his usual Rueben sandwich and crinkle-cut fries at the Rodeo Diner (which the owner, Sara Chutley, strangely pronounced Roh-DAY-Oh, like the street in Beverly Hills), climbed on his computer even before he had his boots kicked off, and looked up Strathcomb in the White Pages.
"Nothin," he said to himself, leaning back in the old desk chair with a fart of faux leather.
Well, what the hell was he going to do, anyway? Place a call to the kid's mother? Ask her if her boy was doing all right or if he'd run into any doors lately? Maybe the kid really had gotten sick. Or maybe--and this was more likely--maybe the kid was playing sick to stay home from school, worried that if he'd attended today he might have had to contend with Jessie Kinsmen after school let out. The kid probably figured if he could wait it out a day or so, the big red-headed dummy would forget all about five-foot-nothin Dennie Strathcomb and set his sights on some other runny-nosed brat.
"Ah, hell," Mr. McAllister said, getting up from the chair with another fart of leather. He threw on his jacket, stepped into his boots, and went out to the car. The phone book might not have their number, but he knew their address. He could check out the house, at the very least. See if the boy was anywhere in sight. If he felt adventurous, he might even go knock on the door. It would be nice to see Dora outside of the school bus, anyhow.
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