The agent of Tremelon placed the cone, slowly and precisely, into a holder on the small counter, flicking his head from Stave to the ice cream, then back again. His right claw hand disappeared below the counter. It appeared again gripping a blowtorch. The splintering sound of breaking branches, or bones, heard even from outside, over the roar of the engines.
The agent turned a milled ring on the blowtorch and lit it with a lighter held in the other clawed hand – a blue flame spurted from its end. He brought the flame closer to the ice cream while nodding.
Intimidating. And yes, I am intimidated. This is personal somehow, I know for certain. My brain is fogging more and my tongue is twitching involuntarily.
Stave let out a cry and quickly walked the length of the bus once more to the driver.
‘You’ve got to slow down, now! You can’t beat the speed of the van.’
Already the engine was labouring and the bus vibrating.
‘Not allowed to talk to customers while I'm driving, told you that before. Creamy mash, burn and slash.’
‘Burn and what? Listen now, you don’t understand. That agent out there is part of a dream going bad, and it looks like he’s after me in particular.’
Stave began to pant, holding his chest which had tightened.
‘I can’t change speed for an enemy or even a friend for that matter. That’s against company rules,’ the driver replied. ‘Anyway, someone’s after you, you say. Everyone has an enemy, don’t you know. In kindergarten, I was poked and prodded to distraction. Often had my head pushed into the sand pit. At school, my lunch boxes were stolen for a week. I was forever being kicked and punched. Worked in a cement kiln once. One morning, coming to work, the kiln was fired up. A small inferno inside, like a huge glass-blowing furnace or like the red rivers of molten lava in the crater of a volcano. Remnants of my car in there, in that kiln.’
A quick snapping of reality. Unreality overtaking again, a peculiar swamping of consciousness, as if by a flood of water or a subtle and undefined roaring of a wind.
The dream wind. Losing concentration again. Am I lost in someone else’s dream? Still unsure.
The bus driver continued, ‘At least, I think it was my car. It had been stolen the day before. The ones who did these things are different people but still the same – the common enemy.’
‘A bit far-fetched, isn’t it, a car left in a cement kiln? Don’t they have foremen, labourers and management? That’s a lot of people to convince to put a car into a kiln.’
‘I didn’t possess a car to drive for a week, rain or shine. Doesn’t that prove something?’
I would walk for hours in the rain. Or sing in the sunshine. Do I remember that? Memories snatched as if by a thief of the mind, the moment they are brought to the surface of thought.
The driver sighed, sounding like the rattling of an exhaust.
‘You could be right, I might have been mistaken on that one. I think that was a nightmare. Like the agent out there, a part of the nightmare; army of darkness. Out of the dark, into the blue. Telephone, crunching bone.’
‘But whose nightmare? Already you seem affected, coming out with strange sayings. This could be becoming your nightmare.’
‘Yours, mine, good, bad, does it matter? Don’t look at his face, I’ll tell you that much. I might dare though, when I’m ready. Was taught that one by my colleague back at the bus station.’
‘But there’s no face to be seen. He’s wearing a full mask over it.’
Like a death mask if it had features.
‘Auntie Maude, silver sword. Oh, you’re alright then.’
Still the roar of the engine, the regular and fast pulsing of light and sound through the long tunnel under the river. But then, quite without expectation, the bus started to decelerate. The ice cream van overtook, seemed to slow as well, then hesitated before accelerating and continuing along the tunnel. The bus finally rolled to a stop.
‘Thank you, that’s appreciated,’ Stave said with relief. The ice cream van became smaller and smaller as it raced into the darkening distance. The sounds of the jingle faded to silence.
The driver adjusted his cap, shaking his round head.
‘We’ve run out of petrol. That never happens. The vehicle is checked every morning before leaving the depot. If there is a depot. That could be part of my dream too. Either way, this is an incredibly rare occurrence. Perhaps there’s a leak in the petrol tank. I’d better put a warning sign at the back of the bus. We don’t want any accidents, do we?’ He opened the half door to his driver’s seat and stepped out into the bus gangway between the rows of seats. He raised his voice as he spoke over the intercom.
‘We seem to have run out of petrol. I will phone my headquarters and they’ll send some fuel or a replacement bus. On behalf of the South Yesteryear Bus Company, I apologise for any inconvenience caused. I’m sure this positive dream experience will continue as soon as possible.’
The two other passengers looked up at the driver with varying expressions but both remained silent until Mariella called in a loud voice from the back seat, ‘This is not good enough. What about my collection? I’m already late as it is.’ She held up one of her painted wooden fish, cleverly articulated.
‘I’m in no particular rush,’ Quikso Lebum said, handling his bottle of champagne.
‘I’m onto it now,’ the driver stated, holding his mobile in the air for all to see. He retired to the driver’s cabin. There was silence inside and out, except for the indistinct mumblings of his conversation.
Stave sat near one of his travelling companions, Quikso Lebum, as he adjusted his eye mask again. The mask now had intricate swirls of colour upon it.
‘Do you know your eye mask changes design at random?’ Stave remarked. The young man remained silent. ‘Typical, isn’t it,’ Stave added, to engage him in conversation. ‘If I knew what time I was due wherever I’m going, I’d probably realise that I am going to be late. Any idea of the time? I haven't got my watch on.’
‘Digital or analogue?’ Quikso asked.
Plagued with peculiar doubts concerning time. But a time for what? Or should that be when? This dream reality is playing tricks with time, I’m convinced.
‘Does it matter?’ Stave said.
‘Not really, especially as mine’s not working. I keep it for sentimental value. At least, I think I do.’
‘Worth keeping then,’ Stave said with a hint of irony in his voice. There was a tinkling melody, faint but distinct. It was getting louder. ‘You’ll be late for your gathering.’
‘It goes on for a while, I’m told; they don’t care what time I turn up.’
Stave looked ahead through the front windscreen of the bus and saw something white, growing in size, far ahead along the tunnel.
5: THE BUS DRIVER SUCCUMBS
Stave stood with urgency. The insistent melody was the fairground tune playing from the returning ice cream van.
‘I’ve got to get out of here,’ he cried out. ‘We must help each other; you have to help yourselves.’
If not, I will control you in a positive manner. I must. This is my dream going wrong, I have to believe that. Anything I think will become, I have to believe that now, too.
‘You’ll be lucky, without training,’ Quikso Lebum said.
‘You can hear my thoughts?’
‘I didn’t realise you were thinking. I heard you speak,’ the youth replied. ‘But understand this much, if Tremelon Zandar takes final control, we will have no say in our destinies. We’ll be no more than beetles in a jam jar or specks under a microscope.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘The bus driver told me.’
Dread feelings of being boxed in, not just physically but spiritually too.
Quikso Lebum added, ‘Unless we join forces, or so he said. But who would want to join forces with such bad people? The driver tried to convince me that a nightmare from Tremelon Zandar can be good if we all embrace it.’
There was d
istress in Stave’s voice, as he replied, ‘Well, that’s for him to think. He’s already become infected somehow. As for me, I’ve got to get out of here. And I would advise you to do the same.’
‘You've got to go?’ queried the youth. ‘Well, nice talking to you. Please, take my business card.’
‘You understand the urgency, but aren’t worried? Thanks anyway,’ Stave said, taking the card and running to the front of the bus. He glanced at the bus driver who was still talking on his mobile phone.
‘One moment,’ the driver said into the phone, then to Stave, ‘Yes, can I help you?’
The van was getting closer still, becoming louder. Strings of dark blue smoke came from its exhaust pipe. The large plastic cone on its roof spun at a fast rate.
Stave said, ‘Hurry, I want to get off the bus. Open the doors, please.’
‘I’m not sure regulations allows that, sir. You have to stay on the vehicle until rescue arrives. We can’t have anyone running about in tunnels, especially ones that rotate whenever.’ He adjusted his cap and tapped the bus company insignia on the lapel of his uniform. ‘I can always tell you a story to keep you occupied, now we’ve stopped. Heard you talking about decent nightmares. Here’s mine, saves nine, perfect crime. I’m looking down from a rocky crag to a yellow beach in a cove. It’s littered with sunbathers. They are tiny. I’m that far above, you see, I view them as no more than insects in a puddle. The sea is blue flames, rolling in and out like waves. That flaming sea hides burned and battered bodies underwater, laying on hardened lava shelves. They’re the ones who’ve been taught the lesson. The sunbathers are making cardboard boxes for—’
‘Enough talking, we need action,’ Stave told him. Now the van was no more than four hundred yards away, the plastic cone on the roof flashing like a beacon, the jingle still coming from a metal grilled speaker mounted next to it. ‘I demand to leave this vehicle. You see there, the agent of Tremelon, driving that van, coming back towards us? I have the idea he’s after me in particular, as I told you before.’
How could I make an enemy? Not that I can recall if I have friends or not.
‘After you? After me too. No preferences, perfectly fair, no discrimination. Subtle dish, butter fish, bread cutter. So don’t be selfish with your enemies,’ the bus driver said, and he chuckled at his own joke.
‘You’re talking nonsense.’
‘There are many of them, those agents – tall ones, short ones, a few with more arms than usual. I’ve often seen them with their ruffled backs to me, emanating blue smoke. Some have snakes coming from their heads. Impressive really, in its own way. One of them is there in the van with smoking metal pipes, coming for me as well. I’ve decided, he truly loves me.’
Stave said, ‘Don’t you mean he hates you? Enemies usually hate people they’re after or at least dislike them.’
‘He loves me like a lip-smacking dog licking a fresh bone from a carcass.’ The driver licked his own lips, then said quietly, ‘I’ve always wanted to be loved.’
Stave gulped and pointed, jabbing a finger towards the windscreen.
‘He’s in our lane, driving towards us. What does he want from us, from me?’
‘Everything?’ answered the bus driver while adjusting his cap. ‘Pay packet, house, gardening equipment, computer? You name it, he wants it. Your memories, life, soul – yes, your very soul. Reveal it, prod it, unravel it as if it were a ball of wool, snipping lengths here and there, suck it up like spaghetti. And what type of soul? A water, fire or stone soul, one to be tortured by memories of an abandoned life? Dog muzzle for your sun, cat box for your moon. Snuff out the light of the stars as easily as candle flames. Count five, burn alive.’
Stave sighed with exasperation.
‘That’s far-fetched again. Souls can’t be extracted, sliced or diced, taken, or blocked from entering some ecstatic state of being. I think I need to relax and reconsider the situation. Perhaps he’s a friend of yours. Maybe you’re both playing games, vicious tricks for fun.’
‘Could you be right? Look, the van ahead is slowing. No doubt you think he can help if I talk nicely to him? The agent without a face is waving, see there?’
Stave gripped the bus driver’s arms.
‘We’ve all got to get out. This is feeling ominously familiar. Something is grabbing my throat in an invisible grip and churning my guts. Warn the two down here, and those strange ones upstairs.’
‘So who’s the hero, all of a sudden? Anyway, there’s nobody upstairs. There is no upstairs. This is a single deck bus.’
‘How can you say that? It’s obviously a double-decker. Never mind, I think you’re losing it big time.’
Stave turned his attention to Quikso Lebum and Mariella Fortana, and he bellowed, ‘Follow me!’ He turned back to the bus driver and ordered, ‘Open those doors now or I will.’
The driver shook his head and inexplicably held his cap to his head with both hands, and cried out, ‘He’s back in the driver’s seat of the van. I’d advise you to turn away, he’s taking off the blank mask. I’ll find out what’s underneath, I don’t mind. The ultimate understanding of sublime evil. It can be enfolded, encompassed…’
Before he could speak further, Stave leaned over the driver’s door and started pushing and punching buttons at random on a control panel next to the steering wheel. It suddenly seemed as complex as controls for an aeroplane with row upon row of dials, knobs, and switches.
Stave continued to turn the knobs and flick switches until the bus driver exclaimed, ‘Hey, what are you doing? You can’t do that to company property,’ and finally, the doors hissed open.
‘Thanks for nothing,’ Stave muttered then jumped off the bus, the curved wall of the tunnel close to his left. He tilted his head and peered around the large wing mirror to look at the van. He viewed the driver’s seat but saw no one holding the van’s steering wheel.
Intuition told him to look back to the bus driver through the opened doors of the bus. That man still had hands to his cap but his fingers had begun to fuse. His mouth was open with a look of aghast shock and his eyes were closed with wrinkled eyelids.
Stave turned away and went a short way along the channel made from the bus side and the tunnel wall. Then he lay flat on his back and wormed across under the bus as if a mechanic. He stayed there, panting. His turquoise suit was going to get dirty but no matter – there was only one clear alternative: hide.
Or die? And once dead, die over and again at the hands and mind of Tremelon Zandar, who would pull strips of the soul from me, bit by bit, little by little, as if my spirit was no more than a cooked chicken?
There was a pungent smell of oil, grease, and fumes under the bus. He could feel heat coming from the exhaust pipe.
A fridge magnet made of pottery was attached to the underside of the floor pan. It had moon and sun symbols with an inscription upon it, “Night and Day”. Stave pulled the magnet and it easily came away, and three tiny, metal feathers fell onto his chest. He placed them in his trousers pocket with the one that had come from the apple. As he did so, there was the muffled sounds of footsteps from people walking above, along the aisle of the bus. Then the noise as if ten or more passengers were jumping on the bus floor at the same time.
Stave shuffled further under the bus towards the back end. He tilted his head and saw the bus driver bending, still with eyes closed, carefully placing an enamel warning sign and a traffic cone on the road. After that, the driver felt his way along the left wall, towards the rear of the bus. Now he was crouching and balancing on one of his crab-like hands.
‘I know you’re there. What are you doing under my bus? Get out, sir.’ Stave kept quiet. ‘No use denying it,’ the bus driver added. ‘The regulations clearly state that no passenger should be anywhere near where you are. Gone too far. Hit with a bar.’
‘Keep quiet – what is up with you? That Tremelon agent will hear us,’ Stave said softly. ‘Where are the other two?’
‘If I dared to open my eyes
fully I could tell you, though I heard them get off the bus as well.’
‘What’s wrong with your eyes? And why are your hands turning to crab claws?’
Promises of false salvation. Twisting of true belief.
‘I’ve succumbed to the nightmare. I’ll be given my mask. I will have second sight. You’ll not believe what I’m seeing now. The scalding neon outlines of something incredible. When I am ready – when I’ve been prepared – I’ll see again and be bestowed wondrous gifts. I fully understand now. Tremelon Zandar doesn’t want to steal my soul. He borrows it, buffs it up, gives it a spring clean, then will give it back to me. Embrace the nightmare as a path to enlightened self. Gentle screams of love, he told me.’
Yes, but a love of what? This bus driver has slipped on the slope. He has lost the plot. Whatever the plot is or was.
The driver continued, ‘As for my hands, simply a natural reaction to seeing a horrid sight that was merely a reflection of my own evil, which I must subjugate. Explained. Do you see?’
‘Don’t you appreciate how you’re being fooled?’
‘Who’s the fool here and who’s the fooler? Come out and join me on the journey of evil personified. Feel the heat, lack of beat. Enjoy the burn.’
‘No way. Has he gone, the agent?’
‘For the while. I can summon him if you want.’
‘No I don’t want you to do that. You’d better be telling the truth. I can’t stay under here anymore.’
Stave came out from underneath the bus and stood, but with his back bent, and head kept low. He dared to raise his head to look through the back window into the bus interior. As far as he could tell, it was empty.
‘I’ve something for you,’ the bus driver continued. ‘From Screamy Dan.’
‘Who?’
‘Screamy Dan, my new friend, the agent. Weaker light, stronger darkness. It’s a bit mashed up. I’d eat it before it melts.’
The driver showed him an ice cream, held between his wrists, some melting and running down the cardboard cone onto his fused fingers.
Turquoise Traveller Page 3