The Chronicles of a Public Bus (part 2.05)

Thursday, 15:00, route 40 eastbound

For once, sitting still is a chore for Martin. He’s been promised an old textbook on vampires from the biology teacher, and waiting for tomorrow sounds harder than one of Hercules’s labors. His book on the history of Supers sits forgotten in his backpack.

The smell of iron, sharp as cheddar, catches Martin’s nose, and he glances to the front door. Mellie, in all her armored glory, stomps onto the plastic floor. Her orange hair is black at the tips, and crimson rage darkens her face. As she holds up her bus pass, the thin paper fizzles between her fingers.

Despite their painful curiosity, neither Rick nor Martin asks what happened. The tension is suffocating, and Mellie’s stomping and huffing only pack in more unbreathable air. Only when Martin catches the nearing scent of his family’s “unscented” laundry detergent does the atmosphere lighten.

Mr. Stevenson steps onto the bus with Atlas’s burden on his shoulders. Though broad as ever, exhaustion turns his cheeks gaunt and his gaze hollow. He sighs when he sees Mellie fuming and burning, and his jacket pulls taught with the added slope in his shoulders.

“There’s no point in getting mad now, Melody,” he says. “If Mr. Talisman wants to run a private investigation business, the police can’t stop him.”

Mellie groans and slumps in her seat, leaning her head back like an exasperated teenager. “I know that, and he’s not at fault for wanting to understand what happened to Marcy. He just didn’t have to be such a snob and act like he’d already solved the case.”

Wanting to seem disinterested, Martin unzips his backpack and pretends to search for something. He trains his ears on the conversation a few seats behind him and pulls out the book on Supers, flipping it open to his makeshift notebook paper bookmark.

“True,” Martin’s dad says. “He was a bit rude today. However, few people do anything without reason. Mr. Talisman may very well know more than our own investigators do.”

“Then he should tell the police!”

“Mr. Talisman is has likely lost a bit of faith in our force. I know my neighbors have already started talking about our failure to apprehend the culprit.”

Martin’s mind wanders through the possibilities of what Mr. Talisman may or may not know. Absently, he thumbs the edge of the page, only to find it stuck to the next. As he brings up his hand to wet a finger, he pauses. His mouth feels wrong and crowded, like it did when he was seven and his teeth were too big for his jaw. While his dad and Mellie move on to more mundane topics like significant others, Martin tests the cutting edges of his canines.

None of his teeth are too sharp or too long, but all four canines are loose.

Blood rushes to Martin’s cheeks. He’s in high school; he lost his first set of teeth almost ten years ago. At his last dentist appointment, he’d even been complimented on his exceptional hygiene. Besides, except for the one time Willow nailed his forehead, he’s lasted plenty of violent rounds of dodgeball without once having his face smashed in.

Only one explanation remains, but the thought sends Martin into a fit of shivering. He squeezes his eyes shut and lists reasons why his final conclusion is wrong, picking at the back cover of his book as he thinks.

One: turning usually lasts minutes, not days. He would know by now if he was a vampire. Two: Martin doesn’t remember being attacked, just having momentary confusion. Yes, he tripped on the curb, but that was it. Trying to recall other symptoms of turning, Martin picks faster at his book. Vampires combust in sunlight, but so far, Martin hasn’t even found or felt the crimson scorch of a sunburn.

His stomach growls louder than the bus engine, and Martin realizes that he’s been so lost in thought that he didn’t register the sound of the bus pulling out of the parking lot. Suddenly aware of his ignorance, he devotes all attention to the cacophony of beeping and whirring around him. The metronomic click of a turn signal drills his ears like the rimshots that echo through school every afternoon during the football and marching band season.

Martin’s phone vibrates, and he shakes like he’s at the epicenter of an earthquake. Though his eyes focus with uncanny strength on the passing desert outside, he catches in his peripherals the slight turn of his dad’s head. Struggling to maintain his typical aloofness, Martin fishes his phone out of a pocket in his jacket and turns on the screen.

Drake has just sent a text. “Cheesecake tomorrow is not cancelled,” he writes. “Are you still coming?”

The connection is slow, because Martin has not been acquainted with the fact for long, but he recalls that Drake is a dragon, and Willow, who will certainly turn up for cheesecake tomorrow, is a kind of powerful folk as well.

The corners of Martin’s mouth twitch up into a smile, and his eyes—despite their newly oblong pupils—soften. He has friends to help him understand what’s going on. Everything will go back to normal soon enough.