“Tell me, son. Tell me everything.”
That was all it took. Fred started to speak, and the whole story came out in a rush of words and bitter tears.
“They were there, Charlie,” he said near the end. “At least one of them was there. I felt him, saw him move the glass, sure as eggs is eggs.”
Charlie was quiet for long seconds.
“There ain’t no such things as ghosts, lad,” he said. “You know that.”
Fred nodded.
“Before tonight I’d have said the same thing. But I know what I saw, Charlie. And I ain’t about to unsee it.”
Charlie handed him another JD and sucked smoke before answering.
“I saw plenty of things back in ‘Nam I ain’t never gonna forget,” he said. “Saw plenty of men, good and bad, die horrible, messy deaths. And not one of them ever came back. Packets of blood and shit; that’s all we are, son. Ain’t no sense in thinking otherwise.”
Fred didn’t reply. The events of the night were starting to fade as the booze finally took hold, but he couldn’t allow himself to give in to its seduction, not tonight.
Not when I ain’t got nowhere to go when the bar closes.
* * *
Bill Wozniak arrived some time later. He walked straight over to Fred and Charlie. Fred winced and kept his head down. The sheriff had been the one that took the call the night of Fred’s accident. The big man had cut Fred a break that night and helped out with some creative writing of the official report. That was enough to keep him out of jail, but Fred still felt uncomfortable around the officer, fearing that the favor might be called in at any moment.
“You sober, Charlie?” the sheriff said. “I need a bus driver and we’re coming up short.”
“Sure thing,” Charlie said, tried to stand and staggered into Fred. The sheriff raised an eyebrow. Charlie straightened up.
“I stood up a mite too fast there, Sheriff. But I’ll be fine.”
The older man threw a mock salute, and staggered slightly again.
The sheriff sighed, but handed Charlie a bundle of heavy keys.
“These are Joe’s for his school bus,” he said. “We ain’t found Joe.”
He didn’t say any more, but Fred saw it in his eyes. Joe was another one who he wouldn’t be seeing again anytime soon.
Charlie took the keys, dropped them, and almost fell on his face trying to pick them up.
“I got no right letting you near a vehicle in that state,” the sheriff said. “But this is an emergency. Get some coffee in you, fast. We’re moving out and taking the wounded and the kids first. Bring her to the church hall in twenty. And Fred?”
Fred looked up.
“I’m trusting you to make sure he gets that bus down to where it’s needed. Okay?”
Fred nodded, although the last thing he felt like doing was heading out into the dark.
Looks like that favor has just been called in.
* * *
Main Street was as busy as he’d ever seen it. Several of the stores were open for business, and people with laden trolleys filled cars and pickups. It looked like folks were preparing for the apocalypse.
And maybe that ain’t too far from the truth of the matter.
Even with all the commotion in and around the stores, it was hard to imagine the scale of the tragedy that had unfolded, and might still be ongoing, over at the trailer park. But all Fred had to do was look in the faces of the folks on the street to see that this was a situation that looked to get a lot worse before it got better.
Charlie slugged down coffee from a travelling mug and passed it to Fred. Tony had made it as strong as he could get it, and Fred felt his heart rate go up a notch as it hit his system. The fresh air threatened to go to his head, but he remembered the look he’d got from Big Bill.
I’m trusting you.
Tonight wasn’t the night to be testing the limits of the sheriff’s faith in him. He took Charlie by the arm and started to frog-march him up the road. They left Main Street and headed up the hill towards the spot where Joe normally parked his bus. Several families in the street were in the process of packing belongings into pickups, but not as many as Fred might have expected. Many of the houses were quiet and dark, either because the inhabitants had already moved on or, as Fred believed, they had stuck their heads in the sand and were refusing to see what was happening on the other side of town. It was something he’d got used to over the years of living here. A lot of folks in this area could give ostriches lessons in sticking their heads in the sand. Fred didn’t get over this way much; too heady for his liking, with manicured lawns, trimmed hedges and perfectly painted porches. It made his trailer look like what it had been—little more than a shed with a bed—and it reminded him how far down he’d fallen in the few short years since leaving a home remarkably like the ones he now walked past with eyes averted.
Thinking of the trailer threatened to revive images from earlier in the evening. He pushed them down and concentrated on getting Charlie where he needed to go.
“Not far now,” Charlie said, as if trying to convince them to keep going. The older man staggered again, and Fred had to take his weight to stop him from falling. Fred wasn’t sure either of them was in any way capable of driving a bus.
At least there’s not much traffic to contend with.
As if in reply to his thoughts, the radio in a parked truck at the curbside crackled into life.
“Fred is. Fred is dead.”
Charlie looked confused.
“Did you hear that?”
Fred didn’t reply. Nothing he could say would help. Instead he walked faster, half dragging Charlie up the road. As they walked away from the pickup the radio got louder to compensate, the repeated phrase following them all the length of the hill.
“Fred is. Fred is dead.”
10
After Bill left the hall, Janet was kept busy getting the wounded ready to travel. She thought she’d got round to everyone when a well-known voice called out.
“Doctor, I’ve been waiting for hours here.”
Ellen Simmons sat on the far side of the hall. A bandage around her skull was already seeping red, but the obvious blow to the head hadn’t made the woman any quieter…or improved her disposition.
“About time too,” she said when Janet walked over to check on her. “I would have thought, what with being a patient of long standing, you might have got to me sooner. Especially before those people.”
I’m afraid to ask.
“What people would those be?” Janet said, deliberately keeping her tone neutral. Ellen Simmons wasn’t so circumspect. She waved an arm to include most of the folks in front of her in the hall.
“You know very well,” she said, loud enough for most of those present to hear her. “Trailer trash. I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t the cause of all this trouble in the first place. I’ve told the sheriff often enough.”
Two men nearby looked ready to take offence, but Janet managed to get them to sit still by giving them a stern look.
“Maybe you should keep your voice down, Ellen,” she said. “Passions are running high tonight.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” the older woman replied, as loud as ever. “Passions are always running high down in the trailers. They’re at it like rabbits, all the time. I saw that Fred Grant walking his latest whore just this evening, not long before it all started. What with them and the biker gang it’s no surprise the town’s in trouble.”
Biker gang? Again, I’m afraid to ask.
She was saved from having to answer. One of the two men did indeed take offense this time.
“What are you on about, you old bat? Ain’t no biker gangs around here. If there were, I’m sure they’d have paid you a visit personally by now.”
“Bats. That’s what they were,” another voice shouted before anyone else could speak. “Giant bats. I saw one of them, clear as day.”
“Don’t be stupid. Weren’t no b
ats. It was stealth fighters. Goddamned government experiment gone wrong.”
Then everyone in the place was shouting. Everything and anything was invoked as the cause of the night’s disaster, from witches to demons, Ruskies to UFO, HAARP to FEMA.
Janet stood there, trying to make sense of the chorus of voices, remembering the blue saucer rising up out of Hopman’s Hollow.
What in the blazes is going on here?
* * *
It took the return of the sheriff to calm things down. It wasn’t that he had any new insights on the town’s predicament, or any good news to impart, but his physical presence, air of authority and his reputation for taking no nonsense were more than enough to get the respect of everyone present. Even Ellen Simmons fell quiet, for a moment at least.
“We’re heading out,” he shouted. “All aboard that’s going aboard.”
People started to shuffle out of the hall.
“All set, Doctor?” Bill said to Janet.
“Ready when you are, Sheriff.”
“Well I for one refuse to leave until we’re told just who is responsible for this farce.”
Janet didn’t have to turn round to know who had spoken. Ellen Simmons’ voice was unmistakable, especially in such close quarters.
The sheriff took it in stride.
“That’s just peachy by me, Ellen. It’ll leave more room for somebody who really needs it. The rest of us are getting out of here.”
Bill and Janet managed to shepherd everybody out. Janet wasn’t surprised to see Ellen Simmons exit alongside everyone else.
People gathered in a growing crowd in the car park outside the church hall. Apart from the reddish glow in the sky in the north, above where the trailer park had been, there was nothing apart from some bandages on the gathered people to show the severity of what had unfolded scant hours before. Several yellow school buses sat in the parking area outside the hall. The sheriff walked over to the one nearest the road, and Janet followed him over. Two men got out and stood at the door.
“You sober, Charlie?” Bill said. Both Charlie and Fred Grant, who stood beside him, replied.
“Yes, sir.”
Both were so obviously trying to appear more sober than they actually were that Janet might have laughed in other circumstances. Charlie straightened up and threw the sheriff a mock salute. Suddenly he looked much more like a man in control of himself.
“Reporting for duty, sir,” he said, his tone crisp and military-style. Janet remembered stories she’d heard of Charlie’s service in Vietnam, and his long, stoic battle against the wounds he’d received there.
He might be the right man for the job after all.
“As long as you’re sure?” Bill said.
“Just give the order, sir,” Charlie replied, and saluted again.
Bill laughed.
“And you can cut that shit out right now, soldier, or I’ll have you peeling potatoes for a month.”
Bill turned to Janet.
“Start getting them onboard, Doc,” he said. “I’ll join you once we get everybody set.”
The boarding started. Fred Grant helped Janet get the less able of the wounded up into the bus. There were two other buses in the car park, and a small convoy of pickup trucks and taxis. Alongside the walking wounded, more townspeople arrived every minute. Bill had said they would move out as one. It looked like the town had taken him at his word, and was even now starting to line up in an orderly queue behind his squad car. Charlie and Fred’s bus was first in the queue behind that. Janet considered joining Bill in the squad car, but immediately decided against it. Her place was with the wounded, for now at least. She waited until the bus filled up, then stepped up inside.
“Can we go now?” a well-known voice called out. Ellen Simmons was making her presence felt again.
Charlie was in the driver’s seat, with Fred Grant at his shoulder. He saluted again as Janet stepped up beside him.
“All aboard that’s coming aboard,” Charlie said in a singsong voice. “Get your kicks on Route 66.”
Janet looked the man in the eye.
“You sure you’re sober, Charlie?”
“About as sober as I’m hoping to be,” he replied. Fred patted him on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Doc. He’s got enough coffee in him to float a boat, and I’ll make sure he stays on the straight and narrow.”
That didn’t fill her with confidence, given that Fred didn’t seem quite sober either. She had been planning to sit with one of the more seriously wounded for the journey, but after seeing the drivers, she decided she’d stay up front, ready to take over if needed.
“Any idea where we’re headed?” Charlie asked.
“Town limits to the west first, then on to County Hospital,” Janet replied.
“Right you are, Doc. First star to the left, and straight on till morning.”
The sheriff led them out minutes later.
* * *
The view from a high position through the front window gave Janet plenty of opportunity to see what was happening to the town. To the left of the road everything looked normal, sturdy and serene. But on the northern side the town had fallen into chaos. There were no collapsed holes as such in the immediate area, but the houses showed evidence of severe subsidence, most of them having fallen in on themselves to various degrees; roofs listing, walls collapsed or, in some cases, fallen in completely.
Janet got another indication of the scale of the disaster as they crested Hope Hill and drove past the church. What had been the neatest cemetery in the county was gone, replaced by a gaping black hole. Tombstones, like gray teeth, lay toppled on the sides of the new chasm, and Janet saw two corpses, obviously torn and tossed from their coffins. The old church itself, a feature in the town since its building almost two hundred years before, had sunk in on one side, giving it a lopsided look. Its northern edge perched precariously over a cliff that hadn’t been there an hour before. Several of the passengers on the bus let out wails at the sight, and Janet was grateful as they drove on and left the grisly scene behind.
As they turned onto the approach, to the western outskirts of town, she started to hope they might be free and clear when she noticed that all of the buildings, on both sides of the road, seemed to have escaped any damage. She even stopped worrying about Charlie’s driving; he seemed more than capable of keeping the bus in a straight line, which was almost all that would be required for the long stretch of road ahead.
“Don’t worry, Doc,” Fred said at her side. “The old buzzard knows what he’s doing.”
“Most fun I’ve had with my trousers on,” Charlie replied, and cackled.
Janet let herself relax slightly. Then she heard it. At first she wasn’t sure, as the bus itself was old; the engine far from quiet. But when a fresh nosebleed started, she knew. The hum had returned.
We’re in trouble.
A child screamed, and the passengers moved restlessly.
“Doc?” someone called out. “We’re going to need more cotton swabs back here. I got another nosebleed.”
“Me too.”
“And me.”
Janet tasted blood on her own lip, and saw Charlie wipe fresh blood away from his left nostril onto the arm of his shirt.
“Should have had more JD,” he said. But he kept the bus in a straight line, although he now had pain etched in his eyes.
Pressure built. Janet felt tension tighten the muscles of her chest and neck and tried, unsuccessfully, to calm a heart that threatened to thud out of her rib cage. Her head felt like it had been clamped in a vise again, one that was tightening by the second. The child’s screams continued, louder and more forceful now, and were joined by other shouts of pain and confusion. Some of the passengers started to get out of their seats, seemingly intent on heading for the door.
“Sit down,” Charlie shouted in a voice that surprised her with the force and authority in it. “Sit down, now, or I’ll kick your asses from here to Kansas and back.”
He didn’t take his eyes from the road, but it had worked; whether by shock tactics or sheer force of personality, the passengers returned to their seats. The bus bounced and rocked, as if the road surface itself was moving beneath them.
The hum got louder, and the pressure in Janet’s skull grew until she felt she might scream.
The squad car ahead of them lurched violently and almost went off road before getting back on a straight line. The bus bounced, as if the road had suddenly become a switchback. She saw Charlie glance in the side mirror, and then his knuckles whitened as he gripped the wheel tighter.
“Doc,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I’d grab hold of something. Things are about to get a mite bumpy.”
Janet grabbed the nearest vertical handrail. The bus rocked left, then right. Something in the suspension squealed in protest.
We’ll bust an axle if this keeps up.
She had to hold tight to avoid being thrown off her feet. A fresh jolt threw her sideways, and as she instinctively gripped the handrail tighter, there was a tug and hot tear at her shoulder that told her she’d done some muscle damage that would hurt like blazes later. Finally she found her balance and got both hands on the rail. The rear end of the bus bounced several feet off the road and came back down with a crash that threw folks from their seats and knocked out the rear window in a tumble of glass and screeching metal. The vehicle swayed sharply left, then right again, before Charlie got it straight.
“We’re clear,” he shouted.
Janet remembered to breathe. Fred turned and raised a thumb. There was no accompanying smile. His face had gone white, and his expression was grim.
“Those behind us ain’t been so lucky.”
* * *
Bill brought the squad car to a screeching halt, forcing Charlie to hit the brakes hard and stop the bus just short of running into the other vehicle. The sheriff got out of the squad car and headed back down the road, along the side of the bus and out of Janet’s sight. The bus was full of shouting, angry passengers.
The Hole Page 7