The Revenants

by Castle, Jack

  “We’ve got a live one!” Wally said reflexively. He quickly half-skipped sideways around the bus. “Ma’am, are you okay? Can you hear me?” Wally tried calling out to the screamer several more times but there was no answer.

  Jogging back over to him he asked, “All the windows are collapsed How the heck are we going to get in there? All of our vehicle-penetration equipment is back on the firetruck.”

  “Back door.” When Becca saw Wally wasn’t following she pointed to the top of the bus-tower. “We climb up the undercarriage of the bus to the back door and then drop back down inside.”

  “I don’t know. If that thing tips over while we’re climbing up it, or worse, while we’re still inside…”

  Becca shook her head and pointed to the base of the tower. “I don’t think so. Look at the asphalt, it’s melted around the front of the bus from the fires. I don’t think it’s going to topple over anytime soon.”

  “Alright, let me see if we have any rope in the ambulance. Then we can climb up.”

  “Nuh-uh. I don’t think both of us should go.” The younger fireman flashed her a look as if to say, ‘You coward’, but before Wally could verbalize it, Becca quickly added, “If I’m wrong, and that thing does topple over, you’re the most qualified to render First Aid.”

  She turned her pistol around and handed it to the firefighter, handgrip first. “Here, you better take this in case those ravens come back. You only got eight rounds left so, ah… watch your aim.”

  Wally cautiously took the gun and said, “I’ve never shot a gun before in my life.”

  “It’s easy, you point the hole in the barrel at anything you want to destroy and pull the trigger. Just keep your finger out of the trigger guard, that’s this here, until your sights are on the target and you’ve decided to shoot. Otherwise you might end up putting a bullet in something you don’t want to.”

  “Like my leg for example,” he said reflexively.

  “I was thinking more about me, but yeah, sure.”

  Signifying she was done with the discussion she began removing her heavy Arctic coat. ‘Oh man, look what those stupid birds did to my jacket. I’ve had this thing for years…’ She quickly admonished herself for having such a thought in the first place. After all, three people had died tonight. And that was best case scenario, Denise might live out the rest of her life blind, and who knows how many fatalities were inside the bus. And you’re worried about a stupid coat. You’re a grade-A jerk, Becca-Bear.

  “You sure? I mean,” Wally asked, hefting the pistol, “you might need this in there.”

  Becca had not considered this. Although neither of them said it, after the raven attack, and the crazy fireman, who knew what horror lay in wait inside the monolithic bus-tower. In the end she decided Wally was more vulnerable out here to a known viable threat, (the ravens for example), than she was to the victims inside the bus.

  (Oh, you couldn’t be more wrong, my dear. At least Wally will be safe outside.)

  “Yeah, I’m positive.”

  But now she wasn’t so sure.

  Chapter 9

  The Pit

  Despite what she had said to Wally earlier, every creak and groan Becca heard during the ascent had made her certain the bus was going to topple over long before she reached the top. Climbing the undercarriage of the bus hadn’t been nearly as hard as say the time Mike had taken her ice climbing glacier walls in Juneau, Alaska. But in that case the mountain wasn’t about to fall over at any second.

  At least the ridiculousness of her death, climbing the undercarriage of a bus when it fell over, would be newsworthy, and her brother, and that witch of a wife of his, would have a nice story to tell at their next dinner party.

  Before her feet had left the ground Wally had outfitted her with safety goggles, headlamp, tool-belt, rope, harness and a few carabiners. The firefighter had also wanted her to wear a turnout coat and helmet for protection from sharp edges and glass but Becca knew she wouldn’t be able to climb the bus-tower wearing the heavy burdensome gear.

  It was these thoughts that preoccupied her mind as she climbed upward and eventually, somehow, reached the top.

  On all fours, astride the back of the bus, she glimpsed over the edge. Staring down four-stories, Wally seemed very small standing next to the ambulance. How would she even describe the bizarre turn of events to her little brother? Where do you even begin--with the raven attack, or even farther back, with the cheerleader crossing the road?

  For the most part, the back of the bus was unscathed. She clasped the metal handle and carefully opened the door so as not to cause too much movement.

  She clicked on her headlamp and shined the light down.

  The inside of the bus didn’t look much like the interior of a bus at all. And not just because of the unusual angle. No. The interior looked like a pit straight down to hell, alive and malevolent, something the Italian poet, Dante Aligheiri, might have conjured up. Broken bodies lay everywhere, limbs and heads askew, intermingled with metal and seats. Most people didn’t know the English translation of ‘Inferno’ in Dante’s Inferno, but Becca sure did--it was the Italian word for Hell. And for a moment she imagined the lost and broken souls below trying to climb out of the dark abyss and drag her straight back down into its depths.

  What angry demonic god had hated these teenagers so much? And where were the parents? Why weren’t there at least a dozen of them all out looking for these kids? This made her think of her own family. If only she had gotten through to Robbie on the phone one more time and asked him to check on his kids. Rob would understand. He always had. And they were always fine. Becca had to keep telling herself that. Power outage or no power outage, in the past, they were always fine. Every time she had called. They were always fine.

  “Hey, you okay up there? You want me to come up?”

  Her thoughts had been so paralyzing she had no idea how much time had actually passed. Move your ass, Becca. Denise needs a hospital, and at least one of these kids inside needs your help.

  Ignoring Wally, she shouted down into the pit, “Miss, if you can hear me, I’m coming down, just hang on.”

  About midway down she saw a pale arm fall into the aisle. This was accompanied by a weak moan that sounded more like The Walking Dead than a car crash victim.

  (And here I thought we were going to get through this thing without referencing the greatest show ever on Netflix)

  Zombies. Sure, why not?

  As foolish as the thought of the undead sounded, she was beginning to wish she had brought her gun after all.

  Lowering herself down into the abyss, using the mangled seats one at a time as her footholds, Becca began her descent, straight into the pit of Dante’s Inferno.

  (Did I mention I knew that rascally poet? Unlike the story, ahem, poem if you prefer, my, aren’t we full of themselves today, he never did reclaim his beloved Beatrice. The nimrod got himself exiled and she married someone else. ‘Course, I could be lying about the whole thing of knowing him and simply looked it up on your phone when you weren’t looking.)

  (But what if I’m not?)

  (What if I joke about talking to you but I really am watching you right now)

  (Cause I am)

  (Fair warning)

  Chapter 10

  Descending into the Abyss

  Becca had begun to feel like a character in a horror novel in something King or Koontz might have written.

  Huh, she never realized until this very moment how both names start with the letter K. Funny the things one thinks about when climbing down into a bus-tower filled with mutilated corpses. Thinking about the two biggest horror writers in the business--probably not the most conducive thought I could have in my head right about now.

  You got that right.

  Oh good, and Donnie’s in here with me. I was wondering where you’d been.

  The interior of the crumpled bus was extremely cramped. ‘Of course it would be, at least it’s a lot easier climbing down insid
e than it was scaling up the underbelly’, she thought distractedly. And it was smoky; more so now because Wally had used a fire extinguisher to put out the small fires at the base.

  Using the seats on both sides of the aisle as hand and footholds Becca carefully made her way down. Occasionally she would glance down at the pile of intermingled broken bodies piled up at the front of the bus some thirty feet below. Every inch down was covered in mangled human flesh, and those that had heads? Their eyes were vacant, some even staring back up at her, as if to ask, ‘Hey lady, what happened? Do you know?’

  She didn’t.

  The way Becca figured it, the teenagers, most of which were dressed in football jerseys and letterman jackets, must’ve flown out of their seats on impact when the nose of the bus mashed into the pavement. Becca found herself wondering why the old school bus didn’t have seat belts. And what in the world could throw a bus like this? Some kind of freak tornado?

  A kid wearing a varsity jacket was lying across the aisle bridging the backs of seats to either side. This wasn’t the first dead body Becca had ever seen up close, no, not by a long shot. But it was the first fully intact crash victim she had encountered inside the bus so far. Becca had no choice but to maneuver around the dead kid to continue her descent. When she did she must’ve touched the body with her boot because there was this sickening gushing sound as the boy’s bowels leaked out of his serrated belly, then the poor kid folded unnaturally in half and fell thirty feet below.

  Becca muffled a groan into the back of her hand and stopped for a moment. The bus seemed to close in on her. If there wasn’t someone still alive down there that needed saving she was fairly certain she would’ve lost it right there. Becca decided to focus on the Christmas garland that ran the length of the bus windows, reminding her the holiday was less than two weeks away. She was so busy focusing hard on the decorations as she climbed down she almost passed the only surviving passenger.

  The girl was a tiny thing, wearing a sweater over her cheerleader outfit plus leggings. She was pretty, but definitely not the same cheerleader Becca saw before. Even from that quick glimpse she remembered the other cheerleader was much taller and bigger boned. Plus, the girl in the road had nasty cuts all over her arms, legs, and face. This girl couldn’t have been more than ninety pounds, and there wasn’t so much as a scratch on her. In fact, she was curled up asleep on the back of a bus seat like a cat sleeping on a ledge.

  When the girl opened her eyes she just looked over at her from across the seat littered with fragments of glass, and the contents of about a hundred purses and backpacks, with wide green eyes. “Are you here to take my soul?” she asked drunkenly, as though Becca had just woken her from a long nap.

  The question took Becca by surprise and she had to think it over before answering. Double-checking to make sure her footing below was stable enough to let go one of the handholds she extended a hand toward the teen. “Miss, my name’s Becca Chaffee.”

  Nice, use your full name why don’t ya? Why don’t you sell her some cookies while you’re at it?

  “You’ve been in an accident. I’m here to help you. Can you tell me your name?”

  “Peyton. Peyton Weaver,” she said, and grasped her hand.

  Becca’s intention had been for the teen girl to grasp her hand so she could pull her to safety but instead the teen mistook the gesture for a handshake and lightly shook it. The girl’s hand was so crazy soft and light, it was like shaking hands with a ghost.

  “My name’s Becca. Becca Chaffee.”

  For some reason this caused the teenager to grin. The last thing Becca would’ve suspected possible, and the teen said, “You said that already.”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  The bus groaned heavily. Becca froze in place. Thankfully the tower-bus held its position. The girl’s eyes became wide and afraid. It was the first time Becca had seen the young girl show any real emotion.

  Forcing her own voice to sound calm and controlled Becca asked, “Hey Peyton, what do you say we get out of here?”

  Peyton lifted her head and peered over the seat she was lying on. Becca had wanted to say, “No, don’t look,’ but it was too late. The front of the bus was still a good fifteen feet below, and poor little Peyton got a good look at what happened to the others. That pile of mangled bodies down there were her friends. What could it possibly be like to see your classmates, smiling and laughing one minute, and utterly destroyed the next? The young girl lowered herself back down onto her ledge and shook her head doubtfully. Her face was pale, her voice trembling, she said, “I’m not sure I can.”

  “Are you hurt?” Becca asked, silently rebuking herself for not asking sooner. Physically the girl appeared okay, but for all she knew Peyton could have some sort of internal injuries going on. Hey, Becca-Bear, give yourself a break why don’t you; this is your first time performing a rescue inside the leaning Bus-Tower of South Dakota.

  “No. I’m not hurt.” And in a shaky, embarrassed voice Peyton added reluctantly, “It’s just that, well, I think I wet my pants.”

  Under any other circumstance Becca might’ve grinned at this, but the crumpled bus, the smell of blood and death, the ruined mound of corpses below; it was all so horrible. “Look, I don’t blame you. If I’d been through what you have, I would’ve done a heck of a lot more than pee my pants.”

  This got a weak smile. “Now, I want you crawl over to me and we’ll climb up together.”

  “I don’t think so. I mean, I’m not sure I can climb all the way up there.”

  “Sure you can,” she replied a little too quickly and a little too loudly. Damn. She regretted shouting immediately. It was only that she really wanted to get out of here now. Becca took a breath. Regaining her composure she then said, “I’ll be right behind you the whole way.”

  “Hey!”

  It was Wally. He was now standing atop the back of the bus. “You okay down there?”

  Becca wanted to yell at the young firefighter for climbing up the bus-tower when they had agreed the plan was for him to stay on the ground. The reality was she was glad to see him. “Yeah, we’re good.”

  “Okay. I’m lowering a harness down to you. Help the girl into it and then I can hoist her up.”

  Not sure why, Becca flashed Wally the thumbs up signal.

  “Here it comes.”

  Moving slowly and carefully, Becca managed to talk Peyton into the harness. When the rope went taut, Peyton scooted off the ledge and sat suspended in the air. She seemed to have a little more confidence now, and for the first time, maybe even a glimmer of hope.

  Wally must’ve seen this too for he yelled instructions down to them. “Alright, just sit back in the harness. You don’t have to worry about climbing because I’ve got the other end attached to a utility winch on the front of the ambulance. Becca, you climb up behind her and make sure she doesn’t get caught on anything. If she does, yell out only one word and that word is stop. Nice and loud. You got it?”

  “Got it!” Becca shouted up to him. Turning toward Peyton she decided not to ask the girl if she was ready, because Becca knew she wasn’t, so she opted for, “Here we go.”

  The moment Peyton nodded up to Wally, they could hear the motor on the winch on the ambulance outside activate and Peyton began to ascend.

  Becca was about to climb up after her when something below her clamped around her ankle.

  Donnie quickly cried out, Oh crap. Zombies! You’re done for, fer certain, lass!

  Startled, Becca quickly looked down. She was hoping it was nothing more than she got her ankle caught in some wreckage or debris. And you were thinking about zombies earlier so it’s only natural that… Nope. When she shined her helmet light below she saw a human hand alright, and it was grasping her ankle.

  Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap. This time the panicked voice in her head was her own. Donnie was right.

  A cry escaped her lips and Becca immediately tried to shake it loose, but if anything, the pale, almost luminescent hand
gripped tighter. When she lifted her gaze skyward, Beeca could only see the backside of Peyton Weaver rising up toward the heavens.

  Her overactive imagination kicked into hyperdrive and she immediately reckoned this was an even trade type of situation. Her soul for young Peyton’s. Would’ve been nice if she’d had a say in the matter.

  The hand gripped a little tighter and Becca swore it yanked on her leg the way a choir boy might yank the rope of a church bell. The second tug was so hard her left hand slipped off its handhold, a ruined fabric seat. And it was only by the grace of God that her right hand had been curled tight around the metal of another seat that kept her from falling.

  After dangling precariously for a few seconds, Becca reached up with her left hand and grabbed the same handhold as in her right.

  The arm tugged violently a third time, but Becca held fast in the pull up position.

  She cast the beam of her headlamp below on the hand again. Any second now she expected the arm’s owner to pop his disfigured zombie head out from his hiding spot, open his mouth, and release a moan full of blood.

  That’s it; if I ever get out of this I am canceling my subscription to Netflix.

  Before the hand could tug on her leg a fourth time she reared up her free leg and kicked at it. By the third kick to the hand’s fingers, the hand let go. And it was good thing too, because she wasn’t sure how much longer she could’ve held on like that. Becca managed to lift her leg to a higher seat and climbed upward out of harm’s reach.

  From the higher vantage point she watched as the arm slowly slid off the seat with a sickening sound and then fell to the ground below. It landed on the other mutilated bodies with a grotesque sounding squish

  The arm was severed. At the shoulder no less. How could it possibly have tugged on her like that? It was possible the arm’s owner was still in one of the seats but, looking at where the arm was, the bus was far too crushed for a full-sized person to be hiding there.