“Annabelle, would you just sit down!”
The girl with the long black hair ignored her, too intent on the picture she was taking. Jennifer Moffat sighed. She loved netball, and she loved coaching, but dealing with teenage girls she could do without.
She needed a pay rise.
“Annabelle!”
When the star goal attack ignored her once more, Jennifer levered herself out of her seat. Using the headrests for balance, she walked carefully up the narrow aisle of the bus, past the six empty rows to where the majority of the team were seated. Annabelle stood with her back to her, legs slightly bent as she angled her phone to perfectly capture the grinning faces of her two friends, who were leaning dangerously out of their seats.
Done with subtlety, she tapped firmly on Annabelle’s shoulder.
“What?” Annabelle spun so quickly her swathe of hair whipped Jennifer across the face. The girl eyed her petulantly. If she wasn’t so much better than the reserve goal attack players, Jennifer would have thrown her off the team long ago.
Unfortunately, Annabelle was. And she knew it.
“Sit down,” Jennifer said firmly. “Put your seatbelt on.”
There was a brief power struggle as Annabelle stared at Jennifer, waiting to see if she could intimidate her into scurrying back to the front with the other coach, old Mrs Halliday, who liked to pretend she was deaf and dumb as soon as the bus started going. Jennifer held her nerve. She might be four inches shorter than Annabelle, but she wasn’t going to be intimated by too much hairspray and attitude.
Or at least, she wasn’t going to let Annabelle know that she was.
“Sit down, Annabelle,” she repeated, the growl in her voice telling the girl this was her last warning.
Just when Jennifer thought she was going to have to pull out the big guns – the bluff that she’d pull Annabelle from the team – Annabelle folded. Huffing, she threw herself into her seat, rolling her eyes at Steph Clark, her seatmate and partner in crime.
“’Sake!” she said, loud enough for Jennifer to hear but sufficiently under her breath for Jennifer to pretend she couldn’t (which she did). “I was just taking a picture.”
“Seatbelt, Annabelle.”
Another roll of her eyes, another extravagant huff, but Annabelle did as she was told, slinging the seatbelt across her hips and buckling it.
“Thank you.” Jennifer smiled sweetly at Annabelle and turned her back on her, waiting until she was almost back at her seat before muttering, “Little cow.”
She sat back down across the aisle from Mrs Halliday, who was knitting something unidentifiable in a garish red wool.
“Anything wrong, dear?” The old woman raised her eyebrows questioningly, an innocent smile painted across her lips.
Jennifer offered a similarly fake smile in return. “No, no. Everything’s fine. They’re just excited about the game.”
“I don’t know how you deal with teenagers.” This from the bus driver, a large man who’d given Jennifer his name as he’d lectured her on not letting the girls eat, drink or touch anything while on board his bus. What was his name again? Davey, that was right.
“It has its challenges,” Jennifer agreed.
“Oh, goodness no,” Mrs Halliday squawked. “Our girls are lovely!”
Jennifer just turned towards the window, thinking her cheeks might crack if she had to force another smile. Making the decision to check the job-search websites that night while she enjoyed what was going to be a well-earned glass of wine, she stared out at the countryside as the bus chugged on towards Falkirk and—
“Did you see that?” she asked.
“See what, dear?” Mrs Halliday asked, looking up from her knitting.
“Davey?”
But the bus driver had his head thrown back, his attention off the road, as he stretched his mouth open in a huge yawn.
“What did you say?” he asked a second later.
Jennifer stared hard at the view out of the window, but what she thought she’d seen had disappeared. It looked exactly as it should: green fields, a few sheep. An industrial unit in the background…
“Nothing,” she said slowly. “I just thought I saw—”
There! She was positive this time. A flicker of red, the whole landscape awash with it as if she was seeing through coloured lenses. She paused, waiting to see if it would happen again. After just a couple of seconds it did, only this time the countryside disappeared, replaced with a sweeping burgundy vista.
And this time, it wasn’t just for a second or two.
This time it stayed red.
There was a sudden chorus of crying and shrieks of panic from the girls at the back of the bus.
“What in the hell?” Davey’s shout was all the warning Jennifer had before the bus started careening wildly. She looked through the windscreen to see that the motorway they’d been travelling on had disappeared and the bus was shuttling at 70 mph across sand. The uneven terrain threw the bus from side to side, and Jennifer was tossed from her seat as it skidded and slid to a halt. The bus’s front left wheel was stuck in some hidden crevice, making the vehicle tilt at a dangerous angle.
Jennifer held her breath, terrified, but after rocking for a few moments the bus seemed to decide that it wasn’t going to tip completely.
“OK.” Jennifer picked herself up shakily, fairly certain no bones were broken, though she ached all over. “Girls, are you all right? Is anybody hurt?”
More shouts and terrified screams, but as Jennifer made her way to the back of the bus, she didn’t see any blood – just petrified faces staring back at her. Waiting for her to take charge and tell them what to do.
“OK,” Jennifer said again, trying to stay calm. A quick glance back told her that Davey and Mrs Halliday were out of their seats, standing unaided – and looking to her for guidance. Brilliant. “We’re all right, nobody’s badly injured, so let’s just—”
A scream cut her off.
Annabelle stood, her arm shaking as she point out of the window.
“What the hell are those?”
Jennifer turned to look out of the window. She saw at once what Annabelle was pointing at.
As the screams echoed around her, Jennifer could only stare as a flock of creatures – much larger and more terrifying than any bird she’d ever seen – flew straight at the bus. As they got closer she could see fangs, claws. Absolute evil in their pitch-black eyes.
Attacking as one, the creatures crashed into the side of the bus. Jennifer watched, frozen, as the windows started to crack.