by Aaron Dries
His thoughts were shattered by the sound of a closing door. The young man had not been approaching the bus at all; instead he was crossing to the pickup truck near the shed.
“The keys were his, not the driver’s.”
That’s right, Jack-o.
The fly shot past his ear. For a moment he could have sworn it had lit upon his head and danced. He swatted at nothing.
“What is it?” Diana asked.
Jack faced her. She was nothing. Without hope. He sighed, pitying her for those scrawny arms, that ugly, twisted hair. And yet she had come to see if he was okay. The engine of the truck fired.
Everyone looked through the windows. The pickup sat idling.
“What’s he doing?” Michael asked, crossing his arms on his chest. This gesture was an indicator of his anxiety. It had started at the pool when he was fat with low-hanging boy-breasts. The habit of covering as much of his body as possible still lingered.
Sarah stepped away from the window. Her right hand grabbed the handlebar closest to Julia’s face. The teenager’s eyes widened. She saw a vein pulsing in Sarah’s index finger.
Pound.
“Oh no,” Sarah said.
“What is it?”
Pound.
“He’s in the car.”
Pound.
“Do we run now?” Julia asked.
Pound.
“Oh shit, no.” On “no” the front door of the house swung open and the father emerged in a run. He headed towards the truck.
“What the bloody hell do you think you’re up to?” he yelled at his son.
The blank face behind the wheel did not answer. He gunned the engine instead.
Pound.
The truck leapt forward. The wheels began to spin. The father lunged at the truck and missed.
“He’s coming at us!” Jack yelled.
Fifty-Seven
The truck came towards them at an incredible speed.
The sisters shot to their feet and joined the others, climbing over the seats and cramming themselves against the right hand side of the bus. From inside, the incoming vehicle looked gargantuan. Logic dictated that there was nowhere it would not hit. No, Michael thought. There will be a point of impact—just where?
The pickup drew closer and closer. Julia panicked, slipped, and grabbed the “stop now” wire for balance. It snapped, recoiled like a broken rubber band and whipped along the side of Michael’s face.
The truck swerved to the left at the last moment and crashed into the front of the bus. The crunching of metal drowned their yells. The entire hub rose off the ground, throwing the passengers against the windows. A seat at the front became dislodged. The dead body jolted upwards in a horrific pantomime of life. The sound the impact made was incredible, louder than anything any of them had ever heard. The bus skewered again as the truck fought to dislodge itself. One of the windows split but didn’t shatter. The truck slid free like a blade from between ribs. Its front bumper ripped loose.
“Again!” Michael yelled in warning.
The front of the pickup was crushed. This didn’t slow it down. It emerged from a cloud of dust, fast and as lethal as before. They were stunned but quick. In the time it took for the truck to cross the lawn, they grabbed the nearest handrail and braced for impact. The collision was harder than the first. It hit the bus head on again. Diana tumbled onto a handrail. Julia landed on her shoulder and shielded her belly. The others moved with the weight of the bus and stayed on their feet.
The bus was now angled in a permanent slant to the left and the front door had buckled inwards. Sunlight hit the cracked windshield, painting the hub in a spectrum of delicate, spiderweb shadows.
Fifty-Six
Jed lifted his face from the steering wheel, loose teeth on his tongue. He lifted his head to look at himself in the rearview mirror but it was not there.
The front of his pickup was partially inside the bus.
He felt no pain and was shocked by the red splatter against the twisted console. “Where’d that come from?” he said to the blood.
The door next to him opened from the outside. Bewildered, he registered the sensation of sunlight spilling over his flesh. He bathed in the warmth. It felt wonderful.
“No,” was all he managed before his father pulled him from the truck. Jed had not been wearing a seat belt. Pulled free, he became aware of the erection tented in his jeans. He landed on the ground. His father’s face loomed over him again.
“You stupid boy!” The voice was scared, not angry.
Wes looked at his son. His face was a welt with slits for eyes. A part of him wanted to flog him like a child for being so stupid, and another wanted to drag him into his arms and kiss his forehead. A part of him even admired him.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” Jed said.
They were family and family stuck together even when things were bad, even when the members of the family went bad. Hadn’t they always? He had asked forgiveness from his children in so many ways but mostly through silence. Wes knew he had been too tough on them, maybe even a little cruel. He had only done what his own father had taught and done to him. Now, with his boy bleeding all over his shoes, it hurt to think that Jed felt he had anything to be sorry for.
Wes dragged Jed across the lawn. He told Reggie to stay with Liz, who was in the throes of a terrifying fit. But Reggie had left her daughter’s side.
She stood in the doorway, skirt billowing in the draught. Her hands were inside her mouth. She swung her upper half in wide arcs. Her head thumped against the doorframe.
Wes had lost both his daughter and wife to madness. He should have seen it coming and he hated himself for perhaps being the cause.
It was easier to despise the outsider. “This would never have happened if you hadn’t done whatever you did!” he yelled at the passengers in the bus.
However, there was no time to mourn. He focused on his son’s pain.
Jed opened his eyes. Bright, electric waves of energy coursed through his veins—bursting through his muscles, flying from his head to his toes and to the very tip of his cock. He shook off his father’s grasp and stood up, his back cracking. He grabbed the bottom of his blue wife-beater and pulled it up over his head. It caught on his ears and for a short while he stumbled around unable to see. He ripped the fabric free and was shocked to see it come away red. He swung it over his head and threw it at the bus. The faces inside recoiled as it slopped against a window.
He laughed. A tooth fell from his mouth. He smiled because he knew their refuge was now a prison. Jed was not the kind of man to appreciate irony, and perhaps he didn't even have the smarts to identify it, but he knew and appreciated it when the doors of favor swung your way. Such times were worthy of a smile, even if it came at the cost of teeth.
Stop, a part of him said. Who are you?
The voice belonged to a small boy. He forced it aside.
There was a hand on his shoulder. He turned to face his father. They looked into each other’s eyes. For the first time they saw each other as equals.
Until today, Wes had still seen his son as the child covered in jam and ants. This is my son, he thought. He’s a man. No child could be so angry. It is utterly adult.
“Jed, stop, mate,” was all he could say.
Pound.
“Ah, fuck it,” Jed told the ground. He raised a hand and pointed it at the bus, fingers splayed, looking like a man of intense magical power about to deliver a curse. “Don’t move and you don’t fucking leave and if you do, you’ll fucking die!” He spat into the dirt, lowered his arm and ran into the house.
Wes took a final look at the vehicle. It was welded shut by the remains of the pickup. They wouldn’t dare escape. He had no idea what to do next. His feet banged up the veranda steps as he followed his son into the house.
Reggie was gone from the doorway. She was with their son in the living room, her arms wrapped about him. She rocked him, kissed his forehead. Her face was finger-painted with snot and i
nky blood.
The wind picked up. It made the trees shiver and the old, broken Christmas lights twinkle. It blew through the house and pulled the door shut.
Part Four: Scissors
“The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark”
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Burning of the Drift-Wood
Fifty-Five
Flies swarmed over Peter’s decomposing body.
A spider in a tree ran the length of its web and caught its prey. It usually hunted at night but could not pass up such a prize. The spider wrestled with the butterfly until the web broke and both fell to the ground.
Beads of sweat clung to Diana’s upper lip. A thick musk wafted from her armpits. Diana had always been self-conscious of her personal hygiene. As a teenager, she suffered from acne and had spent many hours scrubbing at her face with ivory bars, squeezing blackheads from her nose. Wherever she went one could smell her perfume, always spring flavors, citrus and pink sugar. They now mixed with sweat in a sickening odor. She blinked and watched the house for movement. Prioritize, girl, she thought. Do you think anyone here is worrying about how you smell?
It had been an hour since the family had retreated inside.
The bus floor was covered in broken glass from the battered door and the broken rearview mirror. Every shard was its own little sun creating warmth. Peter’s notebook was under a seat, the cover growing hot.
Sarah scanned the windows of the house. Every so often there was a shifting curtain, a shadow looking out. Shivers wracked her body every time it happened.
Michael’s eyes were closed. In his mind he sat on a beach, the sound of waves pounding the shoreline. There was nothing in the water that could hurt him. He was alone and not embarrassed to be naked; nobody to laugh at his stretch marks or flaccid skin.
It was funny. Michael never really liked the beach, hated finding sand in every crevice, the constant sunburn. But at that moment he would have given anything to be there, alone and far from threat.
Julia was on her side, curled up in shadow. She wondered if her fear was killing her baby, and if that was for the best.
Sarah stood at the window and wrestled with a series of ifs.
If I’d only missed the bus.
If I’d only overslept.
If I had stayed with Bill, I’d—
She stopped, knowing that blame and consequence could be traced back through history until she was exhausted, and it still wouldn’t change the facts. She was here, not at home. People were dying and she had to be strong.
Jack surveyed the damage. The pickup was wedged into the bus—the door had buckled inwards but still held firm, exposing a diamond of space ten inches wide. Like a man tugging at the bars of his cell, he tried prying the doors apart. They wouldn’t budge. He was too big to fit through. He could see the house through the gap, its façade a mocking face. He slumped to the floor, defeated. We’re not going anywhere. Man, I’m hurting everywhere, my joints, my muscles, am I running a fever? Sure feels like it. Jack hated enclosed spaces. He wasn’t claustrophobic, it was only that the narrow walls and low ceilings unnerved him. They made him anxious.
He thumped a seat in frustration, crouched low and made his way up the aisle, trying hard to avoid stray shards of glass. When he passed the corpse, he remembered the sensation of its face giving way under his foot. The smell of shit and ammonia hung heavy in the air. There was more than just one fly now. They clogged the dead man’s mouth.
Jack slumped into a seat near the two young women, distancing himself from Michael. The guy’s got faggot hair, he thought. If he wants to wear his hair like that, he should move to Sydney. His distaste went deeper though. Jack hated cowards and a coward was what he saw when he looked at Michael.
“Does anyone have any water?”
“Sorry, Jack-o, I don’t,” Sarah said. Her eyes were glued to the house.
He spun on her. “Look, don’t call me that, okay?”
Sarah clenched her jaw. She wanted to tell him to grow up, to let it go. Another part told her to apologize and just humor the boy. And that’s really what he is, just a little boy. She’d seen the look he gave her on the faces of her own children: the expression of a defensive teen hungry for control. Sarah imagined telling him: Don’t talk to me like that. I’m your elder, and more than that, right now, I’m all you got. Don’t turn me or anyone else here into your enemy. If you were my boy, I’d have smacked that spite out of you.
Instead she remained silent.
Jack turned away, leaned back in the seat and cracked his knuckles. The sound was loud and the snapping cartilage made Julia flinch.
You can really tell a lot about a person by the way they do their hair, he thought, smirking. Old bird looks like one of those dykes. Just my luck to be stuck here with a bunch of poofters.
“None of us have any water,” Sarah said.
Fifty-Four
Diana rubbed the back of her sister’s neck. “That nice?”
“Mm-mm.”
Sarah dropped her head and slapped her thighs. “I’m tired of looking at that damn house. It’s burning into my mind.”
Diana turned to her. “Leave it, sit down. What difference does it make if they are checking on us or not? We’re still stuck in here.”
Jack bolted upright as though he had been waiting for someone to say that very thing so he could refute it. “But we should try to get out, right? See that?” He pointed at the window closest to the driver’s hub on the left-hand side, a large crack running its length. “That’s the emergency exit window. It’s the only one on this bus and it’s already broken. All we got to do is push on it—”
“I’m sorry but we can’t do that,” Sarah said, stern. “We push it out and it shatters on the ground and they come running.”
“Pfft.” His eyes turned cold—old bird had a point after all. “Okay, fine. Whatever. So what about that?” He pointed at the escape exit above their heads, the wind whistling through it. “We’re not stuck here. We’re not in a fucking jail. The only thing keeping us here is you guys.”
“While we’re sitting here looking out at them they are looking right back at us.” Sarah bent forward. “If they see us trying to escape, they will come for us. People are dying, Jack, can’t you see that?”
“I’m not blind, lady.”
“Look, sweetie, just take it down a notch, okay? We have to wait this out.”
“What the fuck do you mean, ‘wait this out’, for Christ’s sake! We push out the window or we bust through the ceiling. We just fucking run full tilt for the trees. They can’t catch us all.”
“But, Jack, they will catch some of us. We can’t risk that. They have guns. They’re scared. We’ve seen what happens when we panic, when they panic. We draw attention to ourselves, we break the glass, or they see us running—and the game is up.” Sarah pointed at him, her brow furrowing. “Pardon my French but we cannot fuck with these people. Now, I know you’re smart. I can see it in your eyes. So why are you acting like this? Are you being willfully thick?”
Jack smiled. He would never have let a woman talk to him like this in the real world. Never. “I’m not being thick, lady. I’m—” He waved her away.
It angered Sarah. It was such a typically male shrug. She hated it.
“You’re what, Jack? Come on, you’re what?”
“It looks like I’m the only one in here with an ounce of brains. We’re stuck, so let’s escape! Bam. Problem solved. You think they’ll chase us? Well, here’s a solution for ya: we run. Am I speaking Australian here or what? Have I woken up in the Twilight Zone, am I blabbering ching-chong-Chinaman noises and just don’t realize it? See, I know you’re smart—I can see it in your eyes. So you tell me, what’s so hard to get?”
She sighed. “Jack, we’re going to get out of here. Just not that way. They haven’t forgotten about us.” She looked into his face. “We wait this out. This is the hardest thing you will ever have to do. We g
ot to support each other. Look, let’s not fight. We’re all in the same boat here.”
He moved as though preparing to defend himself.
“Just breathe, Jack. In and out and all that, see? The longer we wait and do nothing, the longer we don’t piss them off, the longer we keep out of danger. We’re buying time. Soon the police will be here. There’s a dead little girl in the middle of a road somewhere, rest her soul. That girl’s got a mother, a neighbor. She will be found. A busload of people is missing. The bus company tried to get through and the driver didn’t reply. Somewhere, someone’s asking questions. The family is panicking, so they might not have called the police. Would you call the police on your own son? I’d struggle with that. So we wait, okay?”
“Oh quit your preaching, woman,” he spat at her.
Sarah smiled.
Just a boy.
Fifty-Three
The day grew hotter even though clouds filled the sky. Michael knew there would be thunder and lightning before the day was through.
Every time a face appeared in the window of the house, it was a stab in their collective consciousness. Every look was a small defeat—it confirmed where they were and what they had been reduced to.
Diana’s need to urinate was overwhelming. She closed her eyes and tried to distract herself.
The group had scattered. Jack was in the backseat and Sarah not too far from him. The sisters sat together, their heads on each other’s shoulders. Julia fought the urge to suck her thumb. She imagined that she was in her bedroom writing in her diary. In the entry she was writing: nothing much happened today.
Michael was closest to the body, his hands over his mouth to keep the smell at bay. It was so thick he could feel it on his skin.
They had closed every window in an attempt to stop more flies from getting in. They watched them congregate on the other side of the glass in writhing patches.
In the steamy silence Julia whispered, “It’s a girl.”
Diana lifted her head, hair stuck to her face. “What’s that, bub?”