The rhythmic crunch of snow beneath his shoes was the only sound in the universe. The houses flanking the endless street stood dark and still. No headlights, no traffic sounds. The world slept.
But not Milton.
A blanket of clouds wrapped the sky in impenetrable twilight.
When was the last time I saw the sun or moon?
Milton pulled back his right coat sleeve to look at his wristwatch, but the glass was fogged, blurring the position of hands and numbers alike.
He plunged his hands deep into his coat pockets, even though they weren’t at all cold. He supposed they must be numb.
I’ve been walking for so long. I need to get warm.
Even as the thought surfaced through the haze of fatigue, a bus stop appeared in the distance. Milton quickened his pace, feeling more alert than he had in ages. A layer of ice obscured the route number and any hint of a destination. It didn’t matter.
As long as I keep moving, I’ll stay ahead of them…ahead of…
An inhuman growl, followed by a long, high-pitched shriek, shattered the silence. Milton spun around, muscles tense, to confront whatever terrible beast had stolen up on him. The dragon in his mind’s eye dissolved as the bus screeched to a stop beside him.
His sigh of relief escaped on a puff of steam.
The door folded open, and the entire frame of the vehicle dipped closer to the ground, almost as if the vehicle were genuflecting. The gesture would have felt more welcoming without the mechanical hiss that accompanied it.
Milton stepped up and deposited a few coins into the metal receptacle, not bothering to look at the driver, who, in turn, offered no greeting. The bus suddenly lurched forward, forcing Milton to take a few unintentional steps down the aisle. Rather than fight the momentum, he performed the awkward dance past rows and rows of empty seats until he reached the back of the bus.
“The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,” said someone from across the aisle.
Milton jumped in spite of himself. Hadn’t the bus been empty?
A young man wearing blue jeans and a hooded sweatshirt sat sideways in the seat, knees against his chest. Reddish-brown curls peeked out from under the hood. He gave Milton a lopsided grin.
Milton looked away from the piercing blue eyes.
“They say there’s always one crazy person on every city bus,” the young man said. “I’m sure glad you showed up.”
Milton reluctantly turned back to him. “I’m sorry?”
The young man took a drink from a silver beer can that Milton hadn’t noticed before. “If there’s always a crazy person on the bus, and I was the only one here, then that would make me crazy. But now that you’re here.” He waited a few seconds and then scoffed. “Never mind. Obviously, it was a bad joke.”
His gaze never left Milton as he raised the can to his lips again. “I’m DJ. Who are you?”
Milton opened his mouth but stopped himself just in time.
What if he is one of them?
DJ laughed. “A little shy, huh? Or maybe just socially inept. You remind me of a teacher I had in high school. Mr. Kenneth Furrows. All us kids called him Kenny. Mind if I call you Kenny?”
“Ah, I suppose not.”
DJ’s uneven smile widened. “Are you a teacher?”
What’s with all of the questions?
“No,” Milton replied. DJ waited expectantly. “I mean, I’m not a teacher anymore. I’m…I’m between work right now.”
Why did I tell him that? Just face forward, Milton, and maybe he’ll shut up!
Milton smiled politely and looked away. He turned to the window for a distraction, but the world outside the bus had become a black abyss. Acting as a mirror, the glass broadcast the interior of the bus, revealing a stubble-cheeked, heavy-lidded version of Milton. The transparent reflection of DJ, still staring straight at Milton, took another drink of beer.
“Are you OK, Kenny? You look like shit.”
Milton gritted his teeth. “I’m fine. I just haven’t slept in a while.”
“You’re not a teacher, but I bet you have a ton of books lying around your house,” DJ said. “Stacks and stacks of ’em, right?”
Milton sighed, rubbed his eyes, and looked over at his unwanted companion. “You sure think you know a lot about me.”
“Am I right?” DJ asked. “About the books?”
Milton tried to picture his home, but no matter how hard he concentrated, the image remained hopelessly blurred.
How long have I been gone? How long have I been running?
“Seriously though,” DJ continued, “you should try to get some sleep. I heard you’ll go nuts if you miss too many nights in a row.”
Sleep deprivation can cause blurred vision, depression, general confusion, hallucinations, and, yes, psychosis.
“How long have you been awake, Kenny?”
“That’s none of your business.”
DJ emptied the beer can into his mouth, coughed, and wiped his lips with the back of his sleeve. “How about I guess how long it’s been, and you tell me if I’m too high or low?”
“Are you insane?”
DJ closed his eyes and laughed quietly. “No, you’re the crazy one, remember? Of course, I never said there was only one crazy person per bus. We both could be out of our minds.”
The young man scooted closer to Milton, planting his gray-white tennis shoes on the floor between their seats.
“The problem with you,” DJ said, “is that you don’t just go with it. There’s this guy…he rides the 30 and hands out suckers to all the girls on the bus. Nice guy but kinda creepy.
“And there’s this big black woman who, out of nowhere, will start shouting and swearing. Damn near pissed my pants the first time she did it. Funny thing is, I think she’s yelling at her own reflection in the window.”
Milton edged away from DJ and looked at the back of the seat in front of him. He considered getting off at the next stop, but now that he was on the bus, his exhaustion had caught up with him. Feeling more tired than ever, he feared he would nod off while waiting for the next bus.
If nothing else, DJ, inebriated though he may be, is keeping me awake.
“All the good crazies have gimmicks,” DJ continued. “But you, Kenny…for all I know, you’re just a run-of-the-mill weirdo.”
“For all you know,” Milton muttered.
“I got it!” DJ shouted.
Milton regarded the young man with alarm. DJ’s bright blue eyes burrowed into him.
“You can’t sleep because you’re so damn paranoid. You think the whole world is out to get you.”
Milton glared at him, trying to decide whether to be angry or afraid.
DJ crossed his arms. “Am I wrong, Kenny?”
Milton hesitated, then sighed. What was the worst that could happen?
“I don’t think ‘the whole world’ is out to get me,” he snapped. “But I am on the run. They’ve been following me for days…maybe weeks.”
“Who?”
A voice in the back of his mind cautioned him against trusting DJ, but he ignored it. He had to tell someone, even if that someone was a stranger he would never see again. Or perhaps because of it. Milton took a deep breath and turned toward DJ.
“They work for the government…CIA, I believe,” he all but whispered.
DJ gasped. “Do they wear suits and dark glasses?”
“I…I can’t be sure. It’s been a while since I…”
Across the aisle, DJ’s lips curled back into his customary smirk.
“You’re mocking me, aren’t you?”
“Can you blame me?” DJ retorted. “Conspiracy theorists are a dime a dozen. You’re probably on your way to the copy shop to print out your manifesto.”
“I don’t have a manifesto! I’m just trying to stay alive!”
DJ let out a great yawn and reached both of his arms up in a long and exaggerated stretch. Milton noticed for the first time that the front of DJ’s sweatshirt was marked up with what looked to be whiteout. The imprecise lines formed the silhouette of a wolf, its toothy mouth agape.
Milton stiffened.
The wolf…it means something…
Crossing his arms again, DJ asked, “So what’s this vital information you have that the government will stop at nothing to recover?”
Swallowing his fear, Milton replied, “Oh…nothing that would interest you, I’m sure. Like you said, it’s probably all in my head.”
DJ frowned. In a voice low and soft, he intoned, “But I have promises to keep.”
“What did you say? Are you quoting something?”
“Come on,” the young man drawled. “One lunatic to another…what’s your secret, Kenny?”
“For the love God, my name is Milton, not Kenny!”
DJ’s grin reappeared. The lights inside the bus flickered, and somehow DJ looked older.
“How, exactly, do you intend to prevent the end of the world, Milton?”
He was on his feet in an instant. “Who said anything about the end of the…hey, what’s that on your hand?
Without breaking eye contact, DJ raised his forearm and rolled up his sleeve, revealing a tattoo of a grayish green snake. “Do you like it?”
The serpent, the wolf—Milton knew were important, but he couldn’t piece it together. Lethargy coated his brain like sludge, but the two images filled him with a sense of urgency he couldn’t ignore. He tried in vain to mask his terror.
DJ chuckled. “You can’t run forever, old man.”
Milton yanked hard on the cord and was halfway to the front of the bus when he heard DJ shout, “And miles to go before I sleep.”
When the bus jolted to a stop, Milton scrambled down the stairs and almost slipped on the icy pavement. He spun around, expecting to find DJ following him, but as the bus pulled away, he saw DJ through the window.
Their gazes locked. DJ’s lips moved, and Milton knew the young man was repeating the last line of the poem: “And miles to go before I sleep.”
Milton waited for the bus to be swallowed up by distance and darkness before resuming his hike. His only destination was a direction far from the bus route, far from DJ. He turned at the first corner he encountered.
Unable to sort through the chaotic flashes of thoughts and memory, he concentrated instead on keeping his eyes open and ignoring the lulling cadence of his snow-crunching footsteps.
They can’t catch me if I never stop.
If I never sleep.