“You’re so full of it!” Smitty squeals with laughter. “What’s today’s date, April Fools’? We’re supposed to believe that everyone’s tombstoned from instant food poisoning, and Mr. T has risen again and is trying to kill you?” He jumps up and holds out his arms, moaning.
“Believe it!” Alice thumps her fists on the armrests. “Do you really think I’d even bother to speak to you two unless everyone else was dead?”
I raise an eyebrow. “She has a point.”
“She has a nerve, more like,” Smitty says, his head shaking.
“Fine.” Alice stands up carefully, her pretty retroussé nose in the air. “Go and check. But don’t blame me if you end up dead.”
Smitty steps up.
“Wait.” Before I know it, I’ve planted myself firmly between them. Not a great place to be, but right now, very necessary. “We need to call the police, an ambulance, don’t we? We should stay here until they come.”
Alice’s face widens in horror. “My phone . . . it’s with my stuff! Oh my god!” Fresh tears. “I left my Candy Couture bag on the table!”
“Oh, the tragedy!” Smitty joins in, girlying it up. “The dead people might be . . . touching it!”
“Shut up! You know nothing!” Alice cries. “It’s one of a kind!”
Enough of this. I have a damn phone. I rush to my seat and snatch my backpack down from the shelf. The phone’s in the inside pocket. I’ve barely used it since my mother bought it for me when we arrived in the UK. What was the point? No friends to text me in this dumb, damp country.
Now it might just save my life.
Searching for signal . . . the screen reads. I hold it up to the window.
“Not working?” Smitty bounces past. “When did you get it, the Dark Ages?” He pulls a smart phone out of his back pocket. Nice. He probably stole it. “Now, this little baby will pick up a signal on the moon.” He stares at the screen. For a little too long.
“But not here?” Alice is triumphant.
“Give it a minute,” he says. “We are in the middle of Nowheresville.” He presses a few buttons, like that will help. “Shiznuts. What’s wrong with it?”
“No reception.” My teeth are gritted again; I’m going to grind them down to pegs at this rate. I toss my phone-a-saurus onto the seat. “We have to find the driver. He’s probably got a radio.” I turn to Alice. “Did you see him when you were outside?”
Alice cocks her head to one side in a way she clearly thinks is supercute. “What, you mean when I was running for my life through a snow blizzard? Er, that would be a no.”
I don’t bother with a reply — mainly because I can’t spare the brainpower — and rush down the bus to the back window. The snow has eased off a little. I can just make out the shape of a car. “We need to go check behind the bus. I think that’s where the driver went.”
“See ya.” Alice sits in a seat halfway up the aisle. “I’m not moving.”
“I am,” says Smitty. He’s at the door before I can react. “You stay,” he shouts at me. “In case Malice here gets the idea of shutting me out.” He hits the lever for the door and runs lightly down the steps.
“Be careful.” I reach the top of the steps.
He grins and grabs at his own neck, like some ghoul is dragging him off. The snow crunches as he disappears around the front of the bus.
“Shut the door!” Alice hisses.
“Give him a second. He’ll be right back with the driver.”
Fat flakes of snow are falling rapidly again. The wind has dropped and the air is so full of silence it almost hurts. The patch of red whatever on the ground is still there, but it’s diluted pink now, with new snow beginning to cover it. My ears strain, and my hand hovers over the door lever, ready to push it shut if anything leaps out of the whiteness.
“Hey!”
I jump and bash my knuckles against the steering wheel.
“Give us a hand, Newbie!”
Smitty’s voice. I climb down the first step. “What’s the matter?”
“Come here!”
“Don’t.” Alice rises in her seat, but doesn’t step into the aisle. “Stay!”
“He needs help.” I linger on the steps.
“Oi!” Smitty appears at the door, and I jolt back onto the top step on my behind. Stylish. He looks up at me. “It’s the driver. I can’t carry him on my own.”
“Carry him?” I stand, resisting the urge to rub my tailbone.
“Quick!”
And he’s gone. I fix Alice with my steeliest of steelies.
“Do not lock us out.”
“You’ve got two minutes,” Alice shouts back.
I step out into the white, onto the path trodden in the snow by my classmates. Avoiding the pink, I step off the path and immediately sink up to my knees. Awesome. It’s just snow. Steadying myself against the side of the bus, I place my foot in the first of Smitty’s footprints, following them. The snow is shallower on the road and I move more easily along the length of the vehicle and round to the back, where a Mini Cooper with a British flag–painted roof is wedged against the bus’s bumper.
“Here.” Smitty’s head pops up from behind the car. “Help me drag him.”
I get closer. Oh god. The driver is lying motionless in the snow, his legs underneath the car.
“Is he OK?” Stupid question.
“Not a scratch on him,” Smitty says. “Except for his hand.”
He holds up the driver’s right wrist. There’s a deep gash, and syrupy blood is pumping slowly down his arm. A hot, giddying wave of adrenaline flushes through me.
“We need to bandage him — quickly.” My hand shoots up to my neck for my scarf. My mother’s best cashmere scarf, actually. Pale lilac with blue stripes. She’d tucked it round my neck the morning we left, in place of a hug. I don’t even like the scarf, but the look on her face was so out of character — like she was actually going to miss me for once — that I’d kept it on. But there are other things at stake now. I unwrap it quickly and wind it around the driver’s forearm as tightly as I dare. I have nothing to fasten it with.
“Here.” Smitty drops a small, black circle into my hand. It’s a pin — a badge — with a laughing skull and the words Death Throes on it. The name of a band. I hope. I fix the scarf in place.
“Should we move him?” I look up at Smitty, and my eyes fill with snowflakes.
“Yeah. He’ll freeze otherwise.” He hunkers down and starts pulling the guy up, somehow. “Luckily for us he’s a short-arse. I’ll hoist him and you get under his other arm.”
We shuffle upright, and suddenly the driver’s heavy on my shoulder and I’m breathing in the uncomfortable warm, sweet scent of middle-aged-man sweat. He lets out a moan.
“Good, you’re awake,” says Smitty. “Mister, we need to move you. Just put one foot in front of the other and we’ll do the rest.”
We stagger forward, like an odd, three-headed monster, lurching and sliding through the snow. Finally, we make it back to the door of the bus.
It is closed.
“Malice!” Smitty bangs on the glass. “Let us in, you bloody moose!”
“Come on, Alice!” I cast a nervous glance toward the café. The falling snow is thinning, and I can make out the entrance again. There are dead people in there. I can’t see them, but I don’t want to. “Hurry up and open the door!”
Alice does not appear. The driver grunts, gesturing to a small, metal flap on the side of the coach. With numb, wet fingers I open it, and push the button I find there. The door opens with a swoosh of relief.
“I’m gonna kill her,” growls Smitty.
“Get in line,” I tell him.
Between us we manage to half push the driver to the top of the steps and help him into his chair, where h
e punches the door lever closed with his good hand and passes out.
“Is he dead?”
A voice from on high. For a reason that I cannot immediately fathom, Alice is standing on top of two seats halfway down the aisle, holding a pair of binoculars.
“You shut the door, you cow!” starts Smitty.
“Be grateful,” Alice says. “Found these in Ms. Fawcett’s stuff.” She waves the binoculars at us. “I was being lookout.” She points to the roof of the bus. There’s an escape hatch. “You can see into the café,” Alice says. “No one’s moving.”
Smitty is down the aisle pronto. “Here, gimme.” He snatches the binoculars from her and scrambles up to the hatch.
“Ew, your hands are all sticky,” Alice says. “Oh my god, it’s blood!” she squeals, jumping down and wiping her hand on a seat. “Get it off me!” she screams. “Is it his?” She points to the driver.
“Yep.” My voice is hard. “He hurt his wrist and he’s unconscious. We need to get him some help. Like now.”
“Heads up!” Smitty shouts from the hatch. “Here comes Mr. Taylor.”
“No way,” Alice says.
“For real?” I climb up on the seats, using the storage shelves on either side to pull myself up to the hatch. I poke my head out into the cold air and vie for space.
“He’s coming out.” Smitty holds fast to his position in the hatch. “He’s heading this way.”
“Don’t let him in!” says Alice, trying to climb up, too.
I squint in the direction of the café. No need for the binoculars to see Mr. Taylor now. The snow has stopped, and through the strange pale purplish light I can see the teacher stagger out of the door of the café.
“He doesn’t look right,” I state the obvious.
“Duh, you think?” Alice appears in the hatch. “I told you he tried to grab me and his eyes were all screwy.”
“And the rest.” Smitty shoves the binoculars at me. “Take a look.”
I hold them up to my face and the eyepieces balance heavily on the top of my cheeks as I turn the dial to bring the scene into focus. Mr. Taylor’s head sways in and out of view. I steady my wrists against the roof and stare. The teacher’s face looks bruised and greenish-brown, his eyes are blackened and screwed tight, and his mouth is open like a trapdoor on a slack hinge. Worse, there is something running down his chin. What is that? I blink and look again. It’s blood, dripping from his jaws and plopping onto the white snow. I slowly pass the binoculars back to Smitty.
“I don’t think he remembered your sandwich.”
“Let me see!” Alice tries to elbow me out of the way, but loses her footing on the seat below. With another squeal she slips and almost falls, saving herself at the last moment by shooting out a hand and grabbing at the hatch lid. It rises off the roof for a split second, then crashes down again with a thump.
Mr. Taylor’s head snaps up. He sees us. Letting out a long groan, he stretches his arms out and heads directly toward the bus.
He looks . . . hungry.
I can only grip the side of the hatch and watch as the thing formerly known as Mr. Taylor lurches down the café steps toward us.
“He doesn’t seem very happy,” I say, overly casually, because it’s either that or flat-out panic. “Maybe we don’t let him in, huh?”
Beside me, Alice starts to whine, not unlike one of those little handbag dogs that she probably aspires to own.
“He’s coming for me — didn’t I tell you he tried to grab me?”
Smitty thrusts the binoculars at her. “Watch him. Scream if he gets close. You can do that.” He turns to me. “We need to barricade the door somehow, now!” He’s down off the seats and through the bus like a mountain goat. I follow, a little less cleverly.
“Oi, dude!” Smitty shakes the driver. “How do you lock this door?”
The driver’s head lolls to the side, and Smitty slaps him on the cheek.
“Don’t!” I say. “You’ll hurt him.”
“He’s out cold.” Smitty’s looking for something on the dashboard. “Nope, doesn’t look like these doors lock.”
I search for a button, a lever, something — but he’s right. The door is in four long vertical sections that fold in on themselves like a paper fan when they open. An idea comes to me. “If we had something to put across, like a piece of wood —”
“Got it.” Smitty calls down the aisle. “How we doing, Malice?”
Alice’s blond head ducks down into the bus momentarily. “Do not call me that, you total freak.”
“Is Mr. T still heading for us?” I say.
Alice sticks her head out again. “Yes!” she shouts down to us. “Slowly. He’s sort of staggering around the parked cars, but he’s coming this way. Oh my god, he’s horrible. He’s completely dribbling.”
“Lovely-jubbly.” Smitty grins at me. “I’m going to get my snowboard. Shut the door behind me, won’t you?”
“What?” My jaw drops. “Outside?”
Smitty reaches under my chin and closes my mouth, which makes a kind of clop. Before I have time to recover, he pushes the door lever and jumps into the snow.
“My board’s stowed under the bus. Shut the door!” He disappears around the side of the coach, and I pull on the door lever and race back down to Alice, my face aflame.
“Where is Mr. Taylor now?”
“Past the cars,” says Alice from the hatch. “Have you locked the doors?”
“Smitty’s gone out to fetch his snowboard so we can barricade them.”
Alice drops down from the hatch. “Tell me I didn’t hear you right.”
“Don’t worry.” I smile halfheartedly. “He’ll only be a second. You said Mr. Taylor was moving really slowly —”
“Oh my god oh my god oh my god . . .” Alice runs blindly to the front of the coach. “Smitty’s outside? We can’t lock this thing?” A loud clank comes from underneath the bus and she screams. “He’s going to get in! He’s going to kill us!”
“That’s just Smitty.” I pull myself up to the hatch to make sure. Mr. Taylor is still on course. He’s not fast, but fast enough to make it to the bus if Smitty lingers. “Open the door and help him!”
Alice looks up at me. “Are you totally mental? If you think I’m opening that door, you are living on Planet Crazy.”
“Yeah?” I jump down and push past her. “Is that the planet where everyone randomly drops down dead and teachers go all monstery? Because I think we’re already living there.” I’m at the door lever before she can answer back, and I thump it. It doesn’t move. I try again. No damn diff. There’s a bashing noise at the door. Alice screams again. It’s Smitty, waving desperately from the other side of the glass.
“I can’t get it open!” I shout at him, trying the lever again. It refuses to move. I look at Alice. “Help me!”
“No way!” Alice backs down the bus aisle.
Smitty is kicking the door now; then I see him bend. He’s trying to push the Open Sesame button on his side of the glass. My stomach flips as a dark shape looms into view behind him. Mr. Taylor has arrived. I lift my snow-booted foot and with an almighty force, kick the frickin’ lever like it’s responsible for every goddamn crappy thing that’s ever happened to me. The doors open and Smitty falls inside, snowboard first.
“Shut it!” he cries, but my attention is not on him. Mr. Taylor is filling the space behind him, roaring, fingers clawing toward Smitty, his bloody eyes straining from their sockets. I pull the lever back with all my might, but it’s bent. I must have broken it.
“I can’t move it!”
Smitty turns and whacks Mr. Taylor over the head with his board. Frankenteacher’s monster stumbles back from the door momentarily. I kick the lever again. Still stuck. With a deathly moan, Mr. T shakes himself — blood and sal
iva flying from his mouth like water from the fur of a wet dog — and attacks a second time. Blocking his way with the snowboard, Smitty tries to reach across and pull the doors shut, but it’s no good. I abandon the lever and, against every instinct in my body, hurl myself down the steps and tug at the doors. Smitty is holding Mr. Taylor at bay, but the teacher is a breath away — and I smell it, like rancid, rotting fish-sick. Suddenly there is a rush of wind above. Alice appears over the front seat barrier rail like some kind of avenging angel, whirls the binoculars around her head on their strap, and thwacks Mr. Taylor full on and fabulous in the face.
“That’s for the double detention, you moron!”
He is still and perfectly upright for a second, then he pirouettes away from us, an arm and a leg making a graceful arc to the side, and falls softly into the snow and out of sight. The doors, finally free, slide deliberately into place. Smitty slots the board across them and collapses, panting.
“Woo-hoo!” Alice punches the air with her manicured hand.
The bus starts up with a jolt.
The driver, awake now and rolling in his seat, reaches for the hand brake with his bandaged hand, and revs the engine violently.
“Stay behind the line, kids!” he gurgles.
I cling on to the rail and the bus lurches backward into the Mini with a thud. The driver cranks the gear stick and we leap forward. There is a crunch, the bus stalls, and the driver passes out again and slithers out of his seat.
I realize I’m huddled on the floor, my arms still clinging to the rail above. Like a nervous crab, I tentatively crawl sideways out of my space and crouch by the driver. He’s still breathing.
“Everyone all right?” I call out.
“Been better.” Smitty is curled below me in the stairwell, rubbing his head.
“Where did Mr. Taylor go?” I peek through the windshield. Carefully. This is when they come back. In the movies, this is when they jump out at you and smash through the window. It always happens. If you look though a keyhole, you get your eye poked out; if you look in a mirror, the killer’s behind you. It’s like the law or something.
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