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“The wheels on the bus go round and round-” children’s voices shouted and laughed through the words as the bus made its way downtown. Mrs. Johnson conducted the song to her first graders from the front of the bus. The three parent chaperones tried to keep the kids in line while they smiled and sang with them.
Without warning, the driver slammed on the brakes and sent all the passengers forward in their seats.
“Hang on!” he yelled as the rear of the bus swung to the side as he tried to avoid the pileup in the intersection.
Children screamed, and parents grabbed the ones that they could to keep them from flying across the seats. The bus smashed into a light pole and it shuddered to a stop.
“Is anyone bleeding?” Mrs. Johnson yelled over the cries and pulled herself to her feet. The parents helped her check on the kids one by one. None of them appeared injured, even the ones crying and shaking.
“Okay everyone, we need to exit the bus in a single file-” Mrs. Johnson began, but a shriek pierced the air.
Everyone on board the bus cringed and covered their ears. The windows shattered and children's screams were added to the noise. The bus rattled and creaked. But then, just as quick as it had begun, it was over.
Mrs. Johnson got back to her feet and rubbed her head.
“Where are the children?”
The parents whipped around and realized all the kids were missing from their seats.
Mrs. Johnson was the first out the door to check in the street, even though she couldn’t rationalize even to herself how all twenty-four of the children could have gotten past her to the door in only a few seconds. The parents following behind her all bumped into each other as their feet hit the pavement and they saw the surrounding scene.
Twelve cars piled together in the intersection, all in various states of wreckage. It broke all of their windows. The street lights were hanging awkwardly over the incident, it blew all the bulbs out.
There was no sign of the kids.
People pulled themselves out of their cars, looking dazed but not injured.
“What happened?”
“Did you run that light?”
“No, my light was green.”
“But so was mine-”
They argued over whose fault the wreck had been until a soul-shattering cry ripped through them.
“My baby!” a woman was on the ground next to her car. “My baby! She's gone! Who took my baby?” She had a pink blanket clutched to her chest as she sobbed.
Mrs. Johnson ran over to her. “Your baby was in your car?” she said gently, kneeling next to the woman.
“Y-yes. In her car seat... But she’s g-gone...”
Mrs. Johnson stood back up and looked around at the others, listening. “Did anyone else have kids with them today?”
“No.”
“Not me.”
The parents and the bus driver looked at her uneasily as she connected the dots.
“Something took the children.”
*
“AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED?” Adam leaned back in his chair and studied the group around him.
“Then the police arrived and took our statements,” Mrs. Johnson said.
“I have copies of your statements here,” Adam opened a folder. “I would like the rest of you to read them out loud and then we’ll discuss.” He passed them around and everyone looked at their own words. “Liz, we’ll start with you.”
Liz, one chaperone, sighed and squinted at her page. “We were on the way to the zoo. Mrs. Johnson was leading us in songs with the kids. Then the driver braked and tried to avoid a pileup in the intersection, and we hit a pole. We checked on the children and they were okay aside from being shaken up. But then there was an explosion and all the windows blew out. I think I hit my head. When I came to, all the kids were gone. We got off the bus and the other drivers were arguing over who was at fault, but the kids were nowhere in sight. I didn’t see any–I didn’t–I couldn’t find my son. I think I fainted. I woke up in an ambulance with a cop sitting beside me.”
“Okay. Jacob?” Adam gestured at the next chaperone. Jacob stared at Liz as she cried quietly into a tissue. “Jacob?”
“Hm? Yes.” He shook his head and stared at his paper. “Mine’s the same to start off. Going to the zoo, singing with the kids, we crashed. But I felt an earthquake when the windows busted. We shook around and I thought the ground was opening up beneath us. Then it stopped, and the kids were nowhere on the bus. I checked under the seats and everything...but my little Ruthie wasn’t there. We got out of the bus and I remember lightning in the sky, but there weren’t any clouds. I must have imagined it. The kids were gone.”
“Jen?” Adam looked at the next chair but found it was empty. “Where’d she go?”
The others looked around.
“I think she left during Liz’s statement,” Mrs. Johnson said. “She looked very upset.”
“I see. Okay, Doug then.”
The bus driver shifted in his chair. “I didn’t see an accident when I swerved.” He looked back at his paper. “Approaching the intersection, I saw strange flashing lights, and I braked. The bus pulled and I over corrected. We hit the pole. Then there was a blast of sound and the windows broke. The kids were gone.”
“Mmhmm. So...”
“Wait,” Liz said and looked around again, “Where’s Tina?”
“Who?”
“Tina. The other woman missing her child.”
The others exchanged a look.
“There wasn’t another woman missing a child,” Adam spoke slowly. “The only kids that disappeared were on the school bus.”
“But..the woman’s...howl of anguish...I’ll never forget it. It cut through me like a knife.”
Mrs. Johnson, Jacob, and Doug frowned at each other, but Adam looked curious. He let the silence hang for a moment longer before continuing. “So, there are a few points we can all agree on. The crash, the sudden smashing of the windows, and the kids missing.”
“Wait!” Jen had reentered the room. “I remember the scream too. I remember the woman.”
Adam observed everyone’s reactions to Jen’s words. Liz sighed with relief, Mrs. Johnson looked uneasy, but the others glanced at each other in confusion. Jen came back over to her seat and sat on the edge with her hands grasping her knees.
“Okay, Jen, how about you read us your statement?” Adam picked up her sheet off the floor where she’d left it and handed it back to her.
“Okay.” Jen’s hands shook a little as she read over her words. “We were on the bus, going to the zoo, and singing with the kids. We braked suddenly and then hit a pole. Mandy fell off her seat and was crying. I was helping her back onto her chair when the scream first came and broke the windows. I impulsively closed my eyes and covered my ears. When it stopped, Mandy wasn’t there. None of the kids were. We got off the bus and they weren’t there either. Then there was a second scream, and we found the woman missing her baby. I felt like someone had punched me in the gut...and I don’t remember anything else until the cops showed up.”
Jen took a deep breath and lowered her paper. She stared at the ceiling as she slowly let the breath out, but everyone saw the tears welled up in her eyes.
“Okay, now tell me what you remember about the woman,” Adam said after she seemed more composed.
“Well,” Jen kept her eyes on her hands as she considered the question. “she was curled up on the ground with a baby blanket next to her car.”
“How did you know it was her car?” Adam interrupted.
“Oh, well, there was a car seat in the back.” Adam only nodded, so she continued. “And she cried that her baby was gone. And...I don’t know.”
“What did she look like?”
The others listened curiously, but Mrs. Johnson had her lips pursed together.
“She–uh–had curly black hair. Um, fair skin and a small nose. About my height I’d guess...she was on the ground but um... I didn’t see the color of her eyes...”
Adam watched Mrs. Johnson now as she twisted a strand of her black hair around her finger. “Were there any features that stuck out to you?”
Jen shut her eyes and thought about it. “She...she had a...scar.” She opened her eyes and seemed scared now as she glanced around. “A scar on her arm like a figure eight.”
Everyone turned to Mrs. Johnson now, but she was no longer in her chair. Adam spun around; sure he’d been staring at her the entire time. The lights flickered and then went out aside from the one illuminating the circle of chairs.
A cackle of laughter shook the room.
“What’s going on?” Liz said, her voice tearful as she kept looking all around.
“What did you do with the children?” Adam asked in an attempt at an authoritative voice.
“I ate them,” she growled next to his ear, and he fell off his chair into the circle.
But she wasn’t there. The room was still dark.
“Why?” Jacob choked out the word.
“I took them in the name of the gods.” Her voice echoed around the room and they trembled.
Another laugh vibrated around them. Liz and Jen clutched each other. Jacob openly sobbed as he held onto his chair like a life preserver. Doug was on his feet, fists clenched at his sides.
“Where are you?” he demanded.
“Everywhere.”
The lights came back on and she was standing near the door. Her eyes were balls of fire and she smiled in a way that showed too many teeth.
“The children will no longer be a burden.”
And she vanished in a swirl of air.