Darkness Falling

by Peter Crowther

  We like her, the voices twittered.

  Let's keep her, they said.

  Please? they added.

  She told on us though, one of them said. We can't have that, can we?

  "No," Sally said at last. Then, "I'm all alone."

  She ignored the frantic rustling of disagreement and turned back to watch the windows of the bus.

  The engine sounded louder now and, just for a second, they saw the hint of a light.

  "Something's coming," Rick said. "Everybody keep down."

  He pushed the old man's body under one of the seats and crouched in the footwell against the bus side. Johnny came alongside him.

  "We need to get the hell away," Virgil said, edging his eyes over the lower edge of one of the big side windows.

  "Not now," Ronnie said. He hunkered down behind the boy, his back against the seat edge and his head resting against the rail.

  "You think there are any others?" Virgil said. "Out there?" he said.

  Ronnie remembered the phone ringing in the mall and he felt in his jean pockets for the piece of paper. It was there. He left it where it was and nodded before realizing that the boy undoubtedly could not see him. "I think so," he said.

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. I think so."

  A light washed over the side of the bus and then across the roof before rolling onto the roadway at the other side and up across the building fronts. Something skittered across the floor in front of Virgil and the boy instinctively raised his leg and brought his foot down hard. The boot heel thudded into the object – barely a fuzzy shadow down below the windows – and gave a resounding thuuunnnkk! on the floor.

  "Shit," Virgil said.

  Everyone stayed quiet, but the light on the other side of the bus moved quickly back and washed over them once again before spilling across a TJ Maxx store on the other side of the street.

  "You think they heard us?"

  Ronnie nodded, even though the boy hadn't turned to get an answer. He had raised his head against the metalwork between two big windows and was watching the light move slowly across the building front.

  He tilted his head to see where the beam originated. "Must be high up," he said. "Can't see anything."

  From across the aisle, Johnny said, "You think they know which vehicles they've souped up?" He cleared his throat. "You know, do they know that this is one of theirs? Cos if they do, then they may come down for a closer look."

  "Thanks for that," Virgil said. "I feel better now."

  "Shh!" Melanie hissed.

  Outside, the light had moved back from the building and had returned to the bus. It was now moving slowly over the windows and spilling onto the aisle floor. Ronnie and Virgil Banders pressed themselves against the wall and hunkered over, while, on the other side, Ronnie and Rick and Melanie, Sally and Angel Wurst slid themselves beneath the seats.

  "What the hell can they see?" Melanie asked nobody in particular. So nobody answered. But they were all thinking the same thing: whatever it was that had come out of the old man's eye sockets didn't look like anything that would – or maybe "should" – be able to see a bunch of people scrunched up under bus seats.

  "You think they know where my mommy and daddy are?" Angel Wurst whispered.

  Melanie squeezed her tightly and patted her shoulders. She didn't know what to say, so she just said, "Shhh," again, this time gentler.

  Eventually, the light moved off again, over the road and then somewhere completely away from them. The bus was returned to darkness save for the glow from the store windows along the street.

  Johnny started to shuffle out from beneath the seat.

  "Stay put," Rick snapped.

  "My bloody leg is killing me," Johnny whined. "I have to straighten it out."

  "Can't you straighten it out without getting up?"

  Johnny didn't answer. He pulled himself free and, with a long moan, he stretched his legs into the aisle.

  "I think they've gone," Ronnie said to Virgil's face as it suddenly moved into his vision.

  "Yeah, unless they're waiting above us with their lights switched off… waiting to pounce."

  Rick twisted himself around and slowly edged his head up until his eyes were above the rim of the window.

  "Nothing out he–" He paused. "Hey!"

  Melanie pulled the girl tighter into her arms and patted her shoulder. "There," she said, "it'll be OK," even though she was not at all sure that it would be.

  "What is it?" Johnny tried to lever himself up so that he could see but the pain in his knee was too sharp and he sank back onto the floor.

  Sally Davis watched Melanie and the girl enviously while Angel Wurst stared solemnly across at Virgil Banders.

  You're going to have to go, kid, Virgil thought. He was surprised to see Angel's eyes widen. He smiled. You heard that, didn't you kid? he thought at her, but there was no response. Yeah, you heard it, he thought.

  "Mussellsky's Guns and Ammo," Rick said.

  "Mussellsky?" Johnny's voice was a mixture of excitement and incredulity. "Sounds Russian. Wasn't he a composer?"

  "That was Mussorgsky," Sally Davis whispered.

  "I can't believe this shit," Virgil Banders muttered to himself, though not soft enough that Ronnie didn't pick it up.

  "What's a comp-hoser?"

  "Someone who writes music, honey," Melanie said.

  The girl nodded and moved Samantha the doll around for a few seconds before asking, "He gone away, too?"

  "Gone away?"

  "She means," Ronnie said, "like her mommy and daddy."

  Melanie laughed. "Oh no, sweetie."

  "Mussorgsky is dead, Angel," Sally Davis said.

  "Are my mommy and daddy dead?"

  Nobody seemed in a big rush to pick up the question so it was left sitting in silence for more than a minute or maybe even two until Melanie turned the girl around and said to her face, "We just don't know, honey. That man–" She nodded to the pair of trousered legs protruding from beneath the seat. "–he wanted to hurt us. Men like him hurt my husband."

  "Is he dead? Your husband?"

  Melanie nodded. "Yes, he is." She waited for a few seconds before adding, "But that doesn't mean your mommy and daddy are dead."

  "No, not at all," Sally agreed.

  "No," Rick and Ronnie chorused emphatically.

  Her eyes having moved from face to face and now settled on Ronnie, Angel said, "But they might be."

  Ronnie nodded. "They might be."

  "Well," Rick said with a sigh, "if nobody has any other suggestions, I'm gonna go get us some guns."

  "Sounds like a plan," said Ronnie.

  "I'll come with you," said Virgil.

  Getting to his feet but staying crouched and scanning the windows, Rick said, "You know anything about guns, er…"

  "Virgil," said Virgil. "And no, not really."

  "Does anybody know anything about guns?" Rick said.

  "I know a little," Ronnie said. "You know, basic stuff."

  "Basic's good," said Rick. "That's more than I know. You come with me."

  As Ronnie got to his feet, Virgil said, "Shall I come as well?"

  Rick shook his head.

  Virgil wanted to say, who the fuck died and made you king, shitface? but he didn't, though his scowl betrayed his feelings. "Whyn't you stand outside and watch the street while–" Rick frowned and pointed at Ronnie.

  "Ronnie," Ronnie said.

  "–while me and Ronnie pick up the ordnance."

  Melanie watched the exchange. There was something different now about her husband's brother, like a coming of age. He was taking Geoff's death well but maybe only because he was concentrating so heavily. The fact that he had managed to drive the car all the way from Jesman's Bend showed that he had been able to banish one demon. And now, Melanie thought, here he was banishing another, and the Banders boy didn't seem particularly enamored with it.

  There was no response. "OK," he said to Ronnie, "let's make a move."
/>   A few seconds later they were out in the cool and dark Denver night, running along bent double towards Mussellsky's Guns and Ammo.

  Virgil Banders stepped down onto the street after them, watching their figures grow smaller as they headed for the sidewalk.

  (42)

  As Wayne Talbert scurried under his parents' bed, he could hear shoes clattering on the polished wooden floor downstairs behind and below, making as much noise as Junior suspected Frankenstein's monster's boots might make. He covered his ears while Junior removed the key from the lock and peered through the key hole.

  "Whatcha see?" Wayne wanted to know.

  Mr Yovingham came into view and negotiated a turn towards the landing, moving clumsily and awkwardly, even though there was nothing in his way.

  "It'll be OK," Junior lied. He didn't think it would be OK at all. But they had to try. "We just need to–"

  "I've peed myself."

  "What?" Junior had heard him but the revelation just didn't seem to be all that important right now. There was a clump from right outside, now – this time a dull one.

  "I've pissed my fucking pants!" Wayne moaned, his legs ramrod straight and his body arched forward towards his brother as though this momentary loss of bladder control were somehow his responsibility.

  "We'll get more–"

  "I know. We'll get more at the mall."

  "Right. Now hide."

  Another clump from the stairs.

  Then something rattled down the roof above them.

  "Where?" Wayne asked.

  Junior scanned the cupboard doors, some open and some closed. That was a good question. Where could they hide?

  "Further under the bed," Junior said at last.

  "That's the best you can come up with? Further under the bed?"

  For a moment they wanted to laugh… laugh uncontrollably and let their bladders go in full force.

  But then there was another thud on the door, this time sounding like it was about to break in pieces.

  And was it Junior's imagination or did the handle turn?

  A howl, this time much closer. A second howl answered, from somewhere outside. More clattering from the roof.

  (43)

  They had dumped Karl's body and the body of the little old man into a large flop-topped dumpster in an alleyway beside a Barnes & Noble bookstore. Ronnie had considered saying something but it just seemed like a cheesy thing to do. They had all got back onto the bus in silence.

  The city sped by in a blaze of color and shape, like a showcase city, sterile and empty. The advantages of the airborne bus were obvious – the roads were littered with wrecks of all shapes and sizes, some on their sides or just smashed into other vehicles, and some through store windows, their wheels still turning and the store intruder alarms echoing through the stillness and dopplering as the bus passed them by.

  A ruptured fire hydrant on the corner of Larimer and 19th still fountained a torrent of water while the cause of the disruption – an empty yellow cab – lay silent on the steps of a savings and loan building behind whose broken windows stood an array of mortgage rate offers extolling the virtues of home ownership.

  "I still wish we could've gotten us some more rifles," Virgil Banders said as he steered the bus out of the downtown area and headed towards the suburbs. Sally Davis knelt next to him, her left hand on the tubular steel pole behind the driver's seat and her right, resting on the rubber matting in front of Virgil, clutching a creased slip of paper bearing a scribbled address which she squinted at earnestly through her dark glasses.

  "You think we really need to wear these?" Melanie said. She removed her own glasses and studied them for what was possibly the fourth or fifth time since they'd got the bus airborne after ditching the old man's body.

  Rick grunted approval. "They're not fashion accessories," he said. "I'm not sure – hell, I have absolutely no idea – why the others wear them but I reckon it'll be a help if we come across too many of them."

  "Is that what we're calling them? The others?"

  Rick shrugged and gave Melanie a sad smile. "It's just a name. What do you suggest?"

  Melanie shook her head and turned to look out of the window. She had some suggestions, of course, but the confines of a flying bus occupied by, amongst others, a young girl didn't seem to be the place to air them.

  "If wearing the glasses gives us a few minutes' advantage, it'll be something," Johnny shouted. He rather liked himself in them, having chosen his own pair when Rick and Ronnie and Virgil – strange dude, Virgil; something about him that Johnny found creepy – had come back onto the bus loaded with enough firepower to take Fort Knox and Rick had suggested they get some sunglasses. Johnny had volunteered for the job, and he'd gone out into a steadily darkening Denver to a pharmacy with several spinning racks of the things.

  "You know what we should have done?" he asked of nobody in particular. When nobody rose to the bait, he added, "We should have kept the old guy's glasses."

  "Hey, good point," Rick said. "Were they in the box?"

  Ronnie and Johnny were now sitting on the back seat, the two of them having ditched the box – and its one-time octogenarian contents – in an dumpster behind TJ Maxx. Ronnie had smashed the two rear windows of the bus and removed all the glass. He figured it was better that they had some clear firing opportunities, though he felt the whole thing was ludicrous. He glanced up the bus.

  "Uh uh," Ronnie said.

  "Did you check?"

  Ronnie thought about that. And then shook his head.

  The boy, Johnny, was stretched out across from him, his fingers tapping to an unheard rhythm; the woman, Sally something-or-other, was up at the front with Virgil, helping direct him. Ronnie had wondered about doing the driving himself but he decided it would be better if he were free to deal with any unwanted attention. After all, how difficult could it be to drive a flying bus through an empty city?

  "I told you," he shouted down the bus in response to Virgil's moan about the shortage of rifles. "We took all they had. All we could find, anyways." He finished loading buckshot into a 12gauge and laid it alongside him on the seat. He looked down at the Sam Browne shoulder rig, tore open the Velcro fastening and stuck it down again a little tighter this time.

  "You know," he said across to Johnny, "I feel like… like, I dunno. Elliot Ness." He adjusted his dark glasses, removed the .38 special and checked the clip.

  Johnny said, "You like doing that, don't you?"

  Ronnie nodded. "Seen it enough times on TV." He slipped the special back into the holster and re-clipped the thumb-break snap release. "Don't know if I'll be able to use it, though."

  Johnny struggled to his feet and moved forward down the bus. Rick turned around from his seat, a few seats in front of Ronnie, and smiled.

  "You'll use it," Rick said. He lifted his glasses so they sat on his forehead just above the hairline, turned back around and checked the pump-action on a snub nosed shotgun, making a resoundingly solid chunk chunk. "You seen what they did to–" He let his voice trail off as he turned to look in Melanie's direction. "–what they did to Geoff–"

  "He her husband?"

  Rick nodded. "And my brother." He nodded at the memory of it while, up at the front of the bus, Johnny stared out of the big front windows. "Made a hell of a mess of him." He pointed to his face and said, "eyeball out on his cheek, shaking like he wasn't right in his head." He demonstrated. "I tell you, was a mercy when he died." Rick nodded and laid the shotgun across his lap. "Yep, you'll use it."

  "How about you?" Ronnie asked.

  "Me?"

  "Family, I mean."

  Rick shrugged and grabbed for the seat rail in front of him when the bus lurched downwards and to one side. "Jesus Christ, what the hell's going on up there?"

  "Sorry," Virgil shouted back. "There's one of those, you know, street cleaning trucks? The ones that spray all the water as they move along."

  Rick grunted an acknowledgement.

  "Damn thin
g just moved across the intersection up ahead. Caught me napping."

  "They see you?"

  Virgil said, "Don't think so. Don't know, but don't think so."

  "You wearing your glass–"

  "Yes, I'm wearing my glasses."

  "What would they do – if they saw us, I mean?" Sally Davis asked, her voice low. She didn't really want to know, Ronnie thought.