Bus Trip

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Becca!” Amanda, her faithful friend, waved from the school gates. Becca raised her index and middle finger to her eyes, then flicked them towards her friend.

“Not if I see you first!” She then skipped down the path towards the bus stop, where the long community vehicle had just pulled up. Becca fumbled in her pocket, presenting a handful of silver change to the bus driver as she boarded.

“And how was school today?” He took the change gladly, and it created a melody as it clanged into the coin box. “Anything to look forward to tomorrow?” She rolled her eyes. He asked the same question every afternoon, and she always gave the same answer.

Laughing, Becca replied with, “I’ll look forward to the day I don’t hafta go back to that hell hole.” It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy spending time with her friends; school was just so boring. Her head was always in the clouds.

As she made her way down the aisle, Becca was surprised to find that her usual seat was taken. A teenage boy with sleek black hair and way too much eyeliner sat in the second row from the back, leaning his elbow on the windowsill and staring into oblivion; a typical emo. She didn’t know him though. Even though it was a public bus, there was usually only school students and staff boarding at this time of day.

“Hey,” she talked with a cheeky grin on her face, “you’re in my seat.” He turned to face her and she saw that his brown eyes were glassed over; he’d been crying.

“It’s mine now,” he mumbled and returned to whatever he was looking at, paying her no more attention.

“Fine.” Becca shuffled back to the previous row, he obviously wasn’t in any mood for jokes, or people. She randomly picked a seat and slumped down in it, letting her backpack slip off her shoulder and onto the ground below her. As the bus engine rumbled to life, the last few students boarding, she unzipped the front pocket and took out her phone. The tune to her favourite game, The Sky’s the Limit, echoed through her ears.

It was a pretty cool little app. The aim was to guide a plane from one fake airport to another, dodging all the obstacles which presented themselves along the airline route. Becca took pride in being a high-scorer; she could die happy knowing that she was number five in the world.

“Sit down!” She must’ve drifted off, absorbed in the game, because now someone was out of their seat and being yelled at by the driver. She tapped the pause button and looked up from her phone; it was the emo guy, the one who’d taken her spot. He was up the front, beside the driver, hand in his coat pocket.

“Sit down, now!” The driver yelled again, and Becca saw the other passengers shift nervously in their seats. Nothing like this had happened before. The emo guy mumbled something, mixing up his words. He seemed panicky, the way he fiddled with whatever he was holding in the confines of that gothic coat, and the way his chest rose up and down with uneasy breaths.

“Is that a threat?” She couldn’t make out what he’d said, but the bus driver’s words confirmed that there was something seriously off about this kid. Had he just made a threat? Becca wondered if she should use her phone to record the scene unfolding; this was the sort of stuff they showed on evening news programs.

Becca froze as the emo guy’s hand emerged from his pocket holding a gun. A real, black as night, deadly handgun. Her eyes widened with terror as he held it at the bus driver, who stiffened, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles. Not a single breath was heard in that bus; everyone was on the edge of their seats, wondering what was about to happen, desperate for nothing to happen.

The emo guy shook in place as the bus hit some bumps in the road. God, Becca turned even paler as she realised, the bus is still moving. The driver seemed to have it all under control, at least, he was surely trained for this sort of psychotic episode, he’d keep them safe. Not if there’s a bullet in his brain, she thought.

“Do it!” The emo shouted, not stumbling over his words that time. The message was clear, do whatever the hell it was that he wanted, or die. But the bus driver, the man she’d talked to every single day after enduring school, wouldn’t give in. His head shook slowly, left to right. Then the gun went off, and his head slumped to the side. His whole body slid off the seat to the floor, landing with a gentle thud at the emo guy’s black boots.

Becca’s heart practically leapt out of her chest, all she could hear was the thud thud thud of the organ. But she could see chaos. Some people were frozen in their seats, just like she was, others jumped up and ran right past her to the back of the bus. Did they expect to break the emergency window and dive out of the vehicle? Heck- the bus was still steadily gliding down the road towards the beach district; they’d break their necks! But what were they meant to do, then?

She sat there, her bosom melting into the cushioned seat, subconsciously scratching her nails against the glass screen of the phone.The world flew past her, cars swerved out of the bus’s way, onlookers pointed and their mouths moved but all Becca could hear was the thud thud thud of her heart.

The emo guy dropped his gun and it fell, rather ungracefully, onto the driver’s shock-stricken face, then bounced to the floor. He shook the corpse off his boots, not showing the slightest amount of the respect for the soul he’d just slaughtered, and sat himself in the driver’s seat.

He took the wheel in his murderous hands, and just as the bus was going to mount the curve and ram a corner deli, he steered it back onto the road. That dark as night man, that devilish figure, that murderous fiend… he had just saved their lives. But why? What did he get by taking control of the bus?

Becca’s heart slowed, deciding that she wasn’t she wasn’t in danger of dying, at least not yet. If he’d wanted to kill them, the emo guy would’ve let the bus glide right into Burgers, Bread ‘N Butter. Her body momentarily unfrozen, she turned her neck and glanced around her. People were huddled together, gripping seats, crying, screaming. Car horns tooted as the emo guy hit the accelerator, picking up speed, she heard police sirens behind them as he went through a red light. The world zoomed by, faster, faster, but he stuck to the road.

Crash! The glass pane of the emergency window shattered behind her; a boy from her maths class held the hammer, and he stumbled back and forth as the bus hit bump after bump. But he wouldn’t jump, that would mean certain death.---

Thud. Her heartbeat returned, getting louder as the bus got faster. She sensed imminent danger, and wondered whether jumping out the bus might be the better option- the emo guy had veered off the road, sending everyone flying up in their seats, he was on the jetty ramp. He was driving towards the ocean.

Becca felt the phone screen crack in her hands, her fingers digging deep inside the electronic device, her fingers ripping at wires, the glass shredding her skin. She heard the revs of the engine; he wasn’t stopping. She heard the other passengers shout in desperation for the him to stop, to hit those damned brakes. But the emo guy was stark white, his skin the perfect contrast to his black garb. His chest heaved up and down, and she heard quiet, passionate sobs from the front of the bus. If he turned around, Becca was sure she’d see those glassy eyes flooded with tears. He was lost in whatever sick world engulfed his mind; he wouldn’t stop the bus. He was desperate to die; and he was taking them all with him.

The ocean loomed closer and closer, the jetty disappeared, the bus hovered in the air for a moment, then it began falling, and the blue waters opened their arms in an embracing hug. This was it, any time now...

That very second, just before the vehicle hit the waves, the emo guy burst into action and yanked on the steering wheel. He pulled it towards him, just as Becca’s avatar pulled on the plane’s yoke in The Sky’s the Limit. And, exactly like a plane, the bus gained altitude and rose into the sky.

Becca sunk back into her seat, both relief and disbelief flooding through her. The ocean grew smaller and smaller, and the sky welcomed them closer and closer. Shocked faces looked up at them from the jetty, police cars flashed their lights as if waving goodbye. The passengers stopped screaming and instead laughed with joy, delighted shrieks echoed down the aisle as the windows turned white and the bus met the clouds. Fluffy marshmallows surrounded them, and she could almost smell the aroma of burnt sugar. That’s a hallucination, Becca thought, clouds aren’t really made of sugar. But the flying bus most certainly was not happening in her imagination.

The bus -or was it a plane- stopped rising and steadily glided through the sky. If the floor had been transparent, Becca would have been able to see the beach district below her; the colourful roofs of shacks and torn sails of old boats, the vacationers gawking at the miraculous sight, the policemen pointing guns as if the bus was an alien spacecraft… but the windows were transparent, and through them she saw a plane.

A real plane, not another wheeled vehicle. The bus was flying beside it, and its passengers had their hands and faces pressed against the glass, eyes bulging from their sockets. Becca raised a hand, grinned, and waved ecstatically. A little girl waved back, but the adults were frozen with disbelief. Becca almost couldn’t believe it herself; she was flying in a bus! But it was happening, and she reveled in sheer childish joy.

“Hold on, losers!” For the first time, the emo guy didn’t seem sad or deadly or deranged. He shouted in delight, moving the steering wheel freely in all directions, directing them through tunnels of marshmallow and past the passenger jet. “We’re moving on!”

Becca turned to the back of the bus, looking out the smashed window at the plane pilots. They were holding up their phones, recording the flying monstrosity. She thought of her own phone, the one she’d smashed during all the chaos. Becca felt a heavy weight in her pocket and placed her hand inside, producing… the phone. Its screen was pristine; smooth glass with not a scratch in sight. The Sky’s the Limit was still on pause, its theme song humming quietly from the speakers.

“Hello?” Becca dialed her mother’s number and spoke into the device. Beep, beep, beep. There was no connection, which made a lot of sense considering they were hundreds of metres above the surface of the earth. She deposited the phone back in her pocket, and her attention was caught by someone outside the bus, speaking to her.

“Hello to you, my dear!” It was a bird. A seagull flapped its white wings rhythmically beside the window, bright orange eyes glaring into Becca’s soul. She wavered in place for a moment, not believing that a bird could possibly be talking. But, just as she was in a flying bus, there was the talking bird. Right before her eyes; undeniable.

“Hold on, everyone!” The emo guy shouted from the front of the aisle, and he pushed the steering wheel down towards the floor. All at once the seagull flicked its wing in goodbye and flew high into the sky -or the bus dropped lower, she couldn’t tell at the time- and the school students, now relaxed, sat back down in their seats. Becca even heard some seat belts buckle amongst the sounds of the engine humming and the marshmallow clouds swooping by. The vehicle was losing altitude, and as she glanced out the window, gripping onto the back of a headrest, she saw the ocean getting closer and closer.

Crash! Becca’s head almost hit the ceiling as the bus hit the jetty and she was thrown into the air. Then there was complete calm and absolute silence as the emo guy steered the bus along the jetty, off the curb, and back onto the road. Becca couldn’t hear any police sirens, any cheering crowds, or surprised shouts. She couldn’t see anything either; the windows had frosted, perhaps having clung onto some clouds, not wishing to let go of their splendour.

The bus chugged on for a few minutes more, and she could only guess where it was going by the way her body was gently thrown left and right. They were maybe heading along the main strip- to the shopping centre? She found out her true destination when the bus stopped, and the emo guy pulled on the massive iron handbrake.

“This is your stop, Rebecca.” He turned his head, faced her, and was actually smiling. The way the corners of his mouth dented his cheeks seemed so unnatural, framed by a mass of black eyeliner and frown lines. “Off you hop.”

“Oh… okay.” Becca felt disappointed that her amazing journey was over. She couldn’t remember the terror she’d felt when the emo guy had hijacked the bus, the driver’s corpse was no longer there to remind her of the deadly shooting. It didn’t bother her that she’d almost been trapped inside a bus, potentially pulled deep into the ocean’s embrace. All she thought of was flying amongst the marshmallow clouds, that little girl’s bewildered grin inside the plane. She recalled the seagull, its white wings waving goodbye to her. And now she hopped off the community vehicle, and was sad that it was all over.

Becca was standing outside a church, its grey brick steeple looming above her. She could hear the humming of a chattering crowd coming from within, and sensed the vibrations of an old organ playing. Then she saw Amanda.

“Hey!” She raised a hand in greeting to her best friend, who was walking alongside the sidewalk. “Guess I saw you first!” Amanda didn’t respond, didn’t even acknowledge Becca’s words. She was dressed in black, like the emo guy, but looked much more formal in her lace-trimmed dress. There were tears in her eyes, Becca noticed, maybe she doesn’t feel like talking. Amanda veered right as she hit the church, and disappeared inside the massive wooden doors.

Becca flicked her gaze behind her and searched for any sign of the bus driving down the road, but it was long gone. So, she took the only other option, and followed her friend inside the church.

There was a massive crowd standing inside. She knew most of them; her parents, family, friends, neighbours, teachers, plus some strangers she’d never seen before. What were all these people doing here, and why hadn’t they told her they were going? Obviously Becca was meant to be there, otherwise the emo guy would have kept driving. A deep, moaning sound echoed through the hall as the organ began a new song, and everyone took their seats.

Becca froze as the front of the church entered her sights, and she saw what was displayed at the altar. Her heart should have been thumping, thump thump thumping, but it was silent. Becca realised that her heart had been quiet for a long time… she had been quiet for a long time. A wave of doom engulfed her as she felt the lightness of her body, the sense of flying, the lack of gravity… the freedom. She noticed a piece of paper on the floor beside her, and read the dark, devastating words as the organ played in the background:

Today we remember Rebecca Martins, who was lost in a tragic bus accident. She departed this world in the depths of the ocean, but now her soul floats blissfully amongst the clouds.

At the altar was a wooden coffin, and Becca’s pale corpse was in it.