by Karina Halle
Graham started laughing hysterically from the couch, blood spraying out of his mouth. A tooth flew out and landed in the aisle at Jacob’s feet.
And just as quickly as the thrashing started, it ended.
Our eyes flew to the windows. The people were all gone.
The only sound was the blasting wind and sand.
We were alone.
“Okay.” Robbie breathed out slowly. “Someone explain who those people were and what the fuck they were trying to do.”
We were all still, afraid to move, afraid it would attract them if we did.
Bob was the first to break the spell and he tried the engine again. It started with a loud roar.
I clapped loudly, almost hysterical, and Bob laughed with a sick sense of relief.
“Thank the lord!” he proclaimed.
“You guys?” Robbie asked again, needing answers.
I was about to exchange a look with Sage to see if either one of us was going to say something when Graham’s laughter stopped.
“They’re coming,” he whispered, his eyes closed, blood pouring out of his nose and mouth.
Bob turned in his seat to shoot him a look when there was a horrific crash, the sound of a dying metal beast, of a bus being broken as some speeding object smashed into its side. I was thrown out of Sage’s grasp and chucked across the bus, my head slamming into the cupboards above the couch. Blood filled my eyes. There was the sound of breaking glass, people screaming horrifically like they were being tortured. The bus rolled and tumbled over and over: blackness, sand, wind. I felt hands and legs touch me briefly, and by the time I knew to reach for them they were gone.
When it all came to a stop, the metal groaning from all around, I didn’t know if I was alive or dead. Everything was dark. I groped around for a feeling of something familiar. I found a small, short box and a handle. A cupboard. I moved my hands up, amazed that they weren’t broken, and they met with something stuffed. A mattress. I tried to think where I was. Maybe in the rear bedroom? All I knew was I had been tossed far when the bus tumbled, spinning me around like a rag in the washing machine.
A cry broke my concentration. I turned in the direction of the sound, and when my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see shadows. There was a light coming from the end, very faint, and with it came sand and wind. I figured that I was at the rear, the bus was lying on its right side, and all the windows at the front were broken.
“Hello!” I called out, choking on the incoming dust. I wiped the blood off my forehead and pulled my shirt up to cover my nose and mouth.
“Dawn?” I heard a weak voice. My heart spasmed at the quiet fear and desperation that gripped it. It sounded like Mickey.
“Mickey? Where are you? Are you hurt?”
Where was everyone else? Why was no one else talking?
He coughed in response. It sounded wet and ragged.
I got to my feet, grabbing onto the side of the bed that was jutting out. I stumbled over a pillow and fell against the wall. Only it wasn’t the wall. It was the side of the bathroom and a huge obstacle I had to climb over in order to get to Mickey and the front. I was dizzy, woozy, and my head was leaking blood from where I had bashed it. It took all the strength I had to try and pull myself up. I collapsed in a heap on top, almost falling through the open door into the bathroom. With shaking arms I reached over and pulled myself across the gap.
“Help,” Mickey cried, closer now.
“I’m coming,” I told him, coughing again, my legs dangling in the bathroom. I slithered across the rest of the wall and immediately met the two bunks. Mickey’s labored breathing was coming from the top one, my bunk.
I leaned over the edge, feeling for him. I touched a leg and he cried out in pain.
“Sorry!” I waited a few seconds, wanting my eyes to adjust but I could only make out blurry shadows. “Are you hurt?”
“Y-yes.”
“Where?”
“My…shoulder,” he broke into a leaky cough. “M-my chest.”
“Do you know what happened?
“I don’t know. Something hit us. Robbie was beside me, I heard him beside me just after it all stopped. Now I don’t hear him anymore.”
I listened. All I could hear was the wind whistling, the grit flying into the bus. I couldn’t hear Robbie. I couldn’t hear anyone else.
Oh God, let Sage be okay, I prayed. It was the only moment of fear I would give myself.
“Mickey, you’re going to be alright. I’m going to find the light, okay? I know there’s one somewhere to the side of your head, where the ceiling would be.”
“I can’t move.”
“That’s okay, stay still. I’ll find it.”
I tried to lean over as far as I could without falling over on him, balancing my torso on the edge of the bunk. I reached and fumbled with my hands and eventually found the light switch.
“Close your eyes,” I warned him. I squinted mine in preparation and flicked it on.
Mickey was lying below me, on the wall beside my bunk. His eyes were squeezed shut. His chest and shoulder were covered in blood, his shoulder twisted, his chest sunken in as if something heavy had slammed into him. His face was ashen, paler than death against his dark beard. I almost cried out but bit my tongue hard, not wanting to scare him.
“Okay, Mickey,” I said.
He opened his eyes slowly, blinking hard at me. “Your head.”
“I hit it,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“Where’s Robbie?” he started coughing. Blood bubbled out of his lips.
I grimaced at the sight and looked over the edge of the bunk. I could barely see him in the space beside the other bunk but Robbie was there, lying on his stomach. For what it was worth, I couldn’t see any blood in the darkness and after a few seconds, I saw his back rise and fall.
“He’s there,” I said turning back to Mickey. “He’s alive.”
Mickey smiled then wheezed and groaned. Sweat appeared on his pale forehead.
“Hey, you’ll be fine,” I lied. “Hang in there, boyo. I’m going to go see where everyone else is and get help.”
“I’m sorry, Dawn,” he said.
His voice cracked. It broke my heart.
“For what?”
“I should have been nicer to you. I wasn’t. I’m sorry. Please, please go visit Noelle when this is all over.”
“Mickey…”
“Promise me. She needs a friend. She never had any. She only had me. Promise me, please.”
I tried to smile. The sadness felt too heavy on my lips. “I promise.”
“Thank you,” he said softly. Then his eyes closed and his final breath escaped his bloodied lips.
My chest was heavy, feeling like I was being choked from the inside. My throat was thick and I was unable to swallow. I couldn’t do this right now. I couldn’t grieve. I’d lose it. Mickey was dead, there was no way I could do anything for him anymore. He was dead.
I looked away and made a point to never look back. I shuffled myself along the side of the bunk and carefully dropped myself onto the back of the couch. The wind was lessening, calming down to a dull roar. I could see the shattered windows, edges of glass splattered with blood. The sand seemed to hover in the air, floating around like I was in a ghostly snowglobe.
I reached down to my feet, balancing on the cushions, and felt around for the light switch on the wall. It came on, flickering. Fiddles was lying in front of me, eyes rolled back in his head, still as death. His head was twisted at a gruesome angle, almost hanging down to his shoulder.
Keep it together, keep it together, I chanted to myself, closing my eyes at the sight. Get out now.
I stepped around Fiddles, a few tears leaking from my eyes, and tried to keep the feeling down that was bubbling up inside.
The windshield was completely shattered and sand had piled in, half burying the only way out. I got on my knees and began to crawl through, clawing through the sand like I was climbing a dune at the beach,
keeping my back low so the sharp blades of glass didn’t pierce my back and sides.
I was halfway out when I felt something thick and unstable beneath me. It was soft. It was a person.
I felt around and touched a side, a chest, an arm. I didn’t know if they were alive or dead. I pushed on the arm, trying to flip the person over, praying over and over again that it wasn’t Sage.
The person finally gave, sand sifting to make room, and with one thump I was looking straight into Bob’s white face. A huge piece of glass was sticking out of one bloody hole that used to be an eye, the rest of the glass lodged deep in his brain.
That did it. Bob was gone. My dear Bob was dead. Bob who had the mortgage and the wife and loved Elvis. Bob whose twinkly eyes and many stories would be going to the grave with him.
I couldn’t hold it together any longer. I screamed, taking in half the desert in my lungs. I flipped him over so the glass wouldn’t cut me and I scampered out of the bus. I dragged myself along, my breath hitched, nerves crying out, until I felt solid ground and stony earth beneath me. I got to my feet and looked around. I could just the see shape of the bus, lying on its side. One half of it was crushed in where something had hit it. Only something the size of a semi or another bus could do that.
I was too distraught to think properly. Where was I again? Arizona. The highway. I needed to get help. I needed to find Sage. Where was he? Where was Jacob?
I looked around, not knowing what direction to go. I was blind in the dim storm. I walked haphazardly, tripping over rocks, ignoring the cuts and bruises I could see on my legs.
“Sage!” I called out. “Jacob?!”
My voice echoed eerily. I heard nothing but the wind brushing past. My eyes watered from the sand.
I was about to call again when I heard coughing to my left. I ran awkwardly in that direction, my leg starting to hurt, until I saw a fallen shape on the ground.
I fell to my knees beside it, scraping my skin.
It was Jacob.
“Are you okay?” I cried out. I put my hand to his weathered forehead. It was hot. His eyes were closed painfully.
“Rusty?” he asked, choking a bit on the words. “I’m fine. Are you hurt?”
“Just my head. What about you?”
“Bloody leg.”
I looked down. His leg was bloody indeed. It was crooked and a piece of white bone was jutting out of his torn brown pant leg. I nearly vomited on him.
“I think it’s broken,” I said feebly.
He coughed. “No shit. Where is everyone else?”
“Mickey, Bob, and Fiddles are all dead. Robbie is still on the bus. He’s alive but unconscious, I think anyway. I haven’t seen Sage or Graham.”
“I think we can assume they’re gone together,” he said between coughs. “His birthday isn’t until tomorrow at midnight. There’s still time. We can get him back. I think I know where he might be.”
“You’re going to help me?”
“Of course, you natty bird.” He closed his eyes and let out a moan, his legs stiffening out straight. “But first, I need help. Go run to the road. It should be right ahead of you. Get someone to drive to a payphone. The storm is lessening.”
I patted his shoulder and got up. “Don’t die on me, Jacob.”
“It would be my first occupational hazard,” he answered. “I don’t plan on it.”
I nodded, and finding the last reserve of my strength, I started running. It wasn’t long before I began to see the shapes of waiting cars and was almost to the road when a dark figure stepped in front of me.
“I’ve been looking for you,” said a coolly sardonic voice. “Sage’s lovebird.”
It was Graham.
I cried out and turned around to run away from him, only to find Sonja, Terri, and Sparky standing right behind me, eyes black, mouths open in a pointy, demonic grin.
There was a blunt thud at the back of my head and a starburst of pain. I was out before the ground met my face.
Twenty-Three
I dreamed I was a little girl again. I was playing at the edge of the swimming holes that perforated the Columbia River, dipping my toe into the cool water but afraid to go in.
“Come on, baby Dawn,” my mother encouraged. I looked up. She was standing in the water, wet hair cascading down the sides of her face. She looked young, strong, and beautiful. “Come in the water.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t a strong swimmer back then.
“I promise to hold onto you,” she cooed. “I won’t let you go.”
She opened her arms and motioned with her hands. Her smiling face was glowing.
“Come on,” she said again.
I hesitated. Then I walked in until I was up to my knobby knees, then I plugged my nose and jumped in the rest of the way.
It was dark and cold underneath the water but I surfaced, my lungs gasping for breath.
“You can do it, baby Dawn.”
I doggy paddled toward her and when I was close, she reached out and grabbed me. I clung to her shoulder like she was a life preserver, instantly calmed by the feeling of her skin against mine.
“See, I told you I wouldn’t let you go.”
I relaxed, resting my head on her shoulder.
Suddenly my ear was being tickled by water. Rising water. I looked up. My mom was staring forward with a blank look on her face.
“I won’t let you go, baby girl,” she whispered absently. Her words were ghosts that floated up in the air.
Now the water was up to my chin. We were sinking.
“I won’t let you go,” she said again.
I gasped for air as we were pulled down.
“I won’t let you go.”
The cold water covered my head. I opened my mouth to scream but water rushed in and filled my tiny lungs.
My mother mouthed the words, “I won’t let you go.”
When I came to, I was lying on my back and my world was rocking back and forth, a shifting, splashing sound filling my ears. I opened my eyes to see a black, star-lit sky, open and expansive, stretching from one dark-hilled horizon to the other. The moon was full and radiating against the darkness. I felt terror wrap around me like a cold blanket, holding me still.
I tried to raise my head. Pain erupted from several points and stars spun in my dizzying vision. I let out a cry, unable to feel anything except the terror, except the pain.
A splash came from my left. At first it was just a sound. It continued, and soon I was being flicked with cold water, making me flinch involuntarily. Each movement caused the pain in my head to explode.
A vicious, melodic laugh erupted.
“Wakey wakey,” came a girlish voice. “Your savior is here.”
“Dawn!” It was Sage.
I tried to sit up but my world was immediately rocked. I tensed, trying to steady my arms, realizing it wasn’t just the blows to the head that had made me dizzy, but that I was lying on something extremely unstable. The lower half of my body, my legs particularly, were sloping downwards and thick vinyl was rubbing against my skin.
“Take it easy,” the girl said. “You don’t want to drown yet.”
I forced my eyes open and waited for the spinning to stop. When it did, I saw a lake lit by moonlight. I was lying down on an inflatable raft that was bending awkwardly in the middle. I looked down at my legs. There was a thick, very heavy chain wrapped around them from my ankles all the way up to my knees. I couldn’t move my legs to save my life and I realized that was the point. It was a miracle the raft had just enough air in it to stay buoyant with all the weight.
To one side of me, floating in the water up to her chest was one of the most beautiful and terrifying people I had ever seen. Long alabaster hair, sculpted cheekbones, and iridescent eyes that looked like they were made of gold silk. For all her beauty, there was something so immensely dreadful about her that my skin crawled, like at any moment her face could change into something so horrific that I’d die from fright.
I
managed to tear my eyes away from her hypnotizing gaze and looked to the shore. Sage was only a few yards away. My brilliant Sage. Somehow, he was here too. He was shirtless, his chest cut up and bleeding, on his knees in thick red soil. He was watching me with total agony on his face. I couldn’t tell if it was for me, for himself, or for everyone else. Half his band, half his friends, were dead.
Graham was standing behind him, his arms crossed like a smug bastard, his lower half human, his head was one that belonged on a demonic worm, with a round toothy hole for a mouth. I shivered at the image, the inhuman blending of drummer and demon, the way his mouth dripped black and red splotches of clumpy blood onto the ground.
Naturally, the GTFOs were all there. Beside him were Terri, Sparky, and Sonja, all looking like the life-sucking groupies that they were.
They weren’t alone. As I looked closely around the tree-lined lake, I saw many bobbing heads in the water—demonic faces in all shapes and sizes. Red glowing eyes. Protruding tongues and razor teeth. Weeping skin covered with maggots.
Something big splashed in the distance—a dark, undefinable shape under a bright moon. I caught the gleam of moving scales and an incredible sense of size. I saw the dark creature moving underneath the water toward me like a stealthy submarine.
This was Lake Shasta. And though I was close to shore, I knew I was in the deep end.
“I’m Alva,” the woman said. She took her hand out of the water and offered it to me. I stared at her like she was a fucking idiot.
Her uncanny eyes narrowed for a second, and in that second her hand transformed into a long tentacle. She swiped it at me and it raked across my chest, pulling away skin with a hundred tiny, blood-sucking mouths.
I screamed at the pain and she laughed in retort, her golden eyes flashing into black, empty holes with no way out. I felt like I was being sucked into them, into a cold, hellish eternity.
“Let her go!” Sage yelled, his voice carrying clearly from the muddy shore. “She has nothing to do with this.”
Alva looked at him dryly, her face transformed back to normal in an instant. “You asked for her, Sage. You asked for this.”