Two Days Ago
I saw the school bus and immediately knew something was very wrong. Approaching from the opposite direction, it lurched abnormally from side to side, swaying into the oncoming lane. Once the bus driver saw Theo’s car, she actually sped up.
I asked, “Is she driving toward us?”
“Sure looks that way,” Theo said. As he veered to the right side of the road, the bus moved, blocking his path. “She’s playing a game of chicken.”
Theo and the bus driver were on a collision course. Every time Theo moved from one side or the other, the bus changed its direction.
“Slow down!” Sasha screamed.
“What do you want me to do? There’s nowhere to go!”
To our right was a ledge with a weak barrier that led straight over the cliff and to the sea below. To our left, we were trapped by a diagonal wedge of stone, the remnants of the island’s volcanic past.
Theo said, trying to convince himself, “She won’t do it. She can’t.”
Max tightened his seatbelt.
The bus roared toward us, the driver’s face finally close enough to where we could see it. I saw it the same time Sasha did.
“She’s got a bloody nose.”
I was trapped in Theo’s car, trapped as if reentering the earth’s atmosphere, hoping not to burn up.
Theo was freaking out. “What do I do? What do I do?!”
“Go in reverse!” I yelled.
Theo slammed on his brakes, the bus seeming to grow larger as it approached, engulfing the view in the front window. Theo slid his stick shift into reverse and stepped on the gas. “Hold on!”
I felt the pull of the car change directions and the view from the side-windows whisked backward. Theo’s neck craned toward me to see behind him as the Roadmaster strained against the speed.
Sasha white-knuckled against the dash. “Faster! She’s still coming! You’ve gotta go faster!”
“I’m trying!”
The bus still loomed, racing toward us, continuing to gain.
“She’s gonna hit us! She’s gonna hit us!”
Through the window, I could see the bus driver’s face above her steering wheel. Blood dripped down her chin; her eyes were cold, but what was scariest of all was her certainty. Her calmness.
Sasha screamed, “We’re not gonna make it!”
Max shut his eyes and grabbed my hand.
The bus was feet, then inches away, and I heard the belch of its engine making a last push, and then it made contact.
In that microsecond, we caught air and I held my breath.
Theo’s car spun to the left of the road, G-forces throwing me against the seat, the world a blur. We literally rode up on the embankment as the bus careened past us, breaking off our side-view mirrors, clawing paint and wrenching against metal with a hideous screech.
We shot out on the other side, landing with a jolt on the road, safe for the moment, as the bus passed us.
But it wasn’t over.
The bus driver lost control and veered sharply toward the cliff’s edge.
Then it was gone.
Silence filled the car.
Max released his grip on my hand. He’d squeezed it so hard it was nearly white.
Theo slowed to a stop. The car’s engine cooled with a whir.
Max said, “Where’d the bus go?”
What we’d only seen unconsciously flooded back to us: the bus had burst through the low guardrail, lumbering over the side, not slowing down, never slowing down, finally disappearing like a heavy box dropped from somewhere far above.
We’d heard no splash. No rumble or explosion. Worse, no screams.
Sasha asked, “It couldn’t have, right?” When no one answered, she repeated it.
Very slowly, Theo and Sasha opened the doors, and we all stepped out of the car, not wanting to believe, as if the moments between walking from the car to the cliff we could live in the comfort of denial. Up ahead lay the wreckage of the guardrail, the only evidence of what we feared.
I ran to the side, breaking the spell.
I didn’t want to look but I had to know.
I wish I hadn’t.
Down below, the bus was in the water, submerging, the engine side sinking fast, tilting the rectangular vehicle straight into the air. Yellow was lost to blue, foot by foot, inch by inch, and water poured inside. From inside, we heard the competing muffled screams, the pitch of terror, the doors locked, as sets of small hands banged against the windows, faces pressed against glass.
“We’ve gotta do something,” Sasha whispered, and yet she knew, like we all did, there was nothing we could do. There is no worse feeling than wanting to help, but being helpless. The cliff was too far down, the bus sinking, disappearing as if in a vat of boiling oil, faces and hands rising like bubbles until only one face appeared in the very back of the bus, mouth open in a silent scream. Water filled inside, matching the water on the outside, and then the bus receded beneath the waves, lost.
It had been there one second and gone the next, and the ocean acted no different.
We stepped back from the side, our movements seemingly not our own.
Sasha reached out and pulled us all into a hug. In a circle of limbs, our heads touched, our gazes forced to the ground. I don’t think any of us could handle seeing anyone else’s face, their shocked expression, despair in their eyes.
I listened as Max wept, and his crying was contagious.
That had been my bus. The bus I would’ve been on had I not stayed home from school.
All those kids.
Unbelievable.
Impossible.
Theo’s voice brought us all back to the present. “Look,” he said, and pointed in front of the busted guardrail. “She didn’t even try to brake.” Sure enough, no skid marks scarred the road.
Now
Detective Perez has her cell to her ear, listening intently. “Thanks for the update.” She hangs up and gazes absentmindedly at the wall. After a moment, her eyes find mine. “They found the body of Ian Watkins in the forest.” She pauses, her face serious. “Just as you said.”
I don’t know what to tell her so I say nothing.
“They’ll remove his body and perform an autopsy. But it looks like he died from blunt force trauma to the head.” She taps her fingers against her legal pad, considering. “Did you know Ian Watkins had a criminal past?”
“No,” I say, though I remember him telling me: “I could tell you more, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t be appropriate.”
“He was in and out of juvie. First time was for bringing a knife to school. Then he got caught stealing a car. The last time he was in for assault. Choked out a kid behind the bleachers.”
“How was he able to get a job in a high school, then?”
“He was under eighteen. Record gets wiped clean as an adult.”
I’m about to defend him; the words ‘he was a nice man’ are on my lips, but I stop. I’ll never know who he really was.
Detective Perez asks, “Where was the bus accident you told me about?”
“Rural Route 2.”
Detective Perez takes out her cell, dials. “It’s me. Call up the scuba divers. I want them to check for any wreckage of a bus…you heard me correctly: a bus. Look for the location near a broken guardrail off Rural Route 2.”
Detective Perez looks at me and there’s a flicker of fear. “And under no circumstance is anyone to enter or leave the island…that’s correct. It’s quarantined…just a precaution, in case….” She appears frustrated. “Never mind why. That’s an order…yes, I’ll take the heat for any blowback about overtime. One more thing.” She stares at me as she says it, “From now on, everyone is ordered to wear protective gear. The island is a hazardous site.”