Threnody (038).

(This is a 500-word-a-day novel project.)

The road was blocked by something, and at first Jesse thought it was another one of them, this one so gargantuan that it could have devoured them in one swallow, but it was a vehicle. A bus. A school bus.

Ryan pressed his back against the scratched yellow and black side, pulling Jesse up next to him. He held up the gun. We got problems.

Ryan slunk around the side of the bus, and he was right – except for hundreds of dents and claw marks on the paint, and one flat tire, the bus seemed mostly intact. The windows were broken, however, and since there was very little glass on the ground, Jesse supposed that meant that things had broken into them.

Imagine going to school one day, you’re ten, maybe eleven, and you get into some kind of accident that gives your bus driver the call that makes him go and go, and before you know it, here you are, with Where the Wild Things Are knocking at your front door.

The folding door was partially open. Ryan shoved it to the side, and hesitated. It’s the driver, he said. Kid, don’t you open those eyes.

There was a man propped up in the driver’s seat, his head missing. It wasn’t bad – just a stump of a neck, glistening with fresh blood. He looked as relaxed as any other day on the job, ready to take his charges off to another bright day of learning. Ryan pushed the body out of the seat, grimacing as it hit the glass-littered floor with a wet thud, blood flowing at their feet, the smell making them gag. Jesse moved to the side while Ryan rolled it out the door with difficulty, and pulled the lever once they were inside, slamming the door shut.

All right, he said, wiping his nose on the back of his arm. I worked at a slaughterhouse one summer. No big deal.

Jesse looked behind them, and slapped her free hand over her mouth and pulled the boy tighter against her so that he could not lift his head from the crook of her shoulder. Don’t look, Ryan demanded, grabbing her shirt and pulling her close to him. Don’t even think about them.

But she was not going to think about it, not when she could see the image burning brightly in her mind: the legs, the arms, the one head placed atop a bus seat like the cherry on the frosting of a cake, and worst of all, a foot, set perfectly inside a little Nike shoe, the kind that had no laces, but Velcro straps instead.

Bet your Mom didn’t see that one coming when she helped you put them on. Or did she? Was this your last act on Earth, to put your shoes on all by yourself, big boy?

Ryan swept the glass off the driver’s seat and sat down. He fumbled around until he found the key in the ignition and turned it.