Sample Sunday: Preview of Hell's Teeth
He could remember nothing more than bits and pieces; fragments, shards, shattered glass slivers and distortion, nothing whole, a prison of broken mirrors. Nothing was the way it should be.
It came out of the black rain.
Its chassis, loose and clattering; bubbled, wine-red paint peeling from its juddering hide, a heavy brown cancer of rust eating its way through the engine's grille and the spokes of the pneumatic wheels. Its windows were dim with dust, streaked with grime, and they rattled violently in their frames. The vehicle was an LGOC X-Type bus, only sixty of them were ever built to prowl the streets of London yet X61 was daubed onto the side of this one. There was no enclosed cab; the Driver sat in shadow beneath a small canopy, exposed to the elements, behind the engine, steering with deft, liver-spotted hands. His uniform clung to his shoulders and thorax, the material of it was stiff, hardened with a flaking crust, patches of ancient blood. He had no head with which to see but see he did, in his own way.
In the alcove towards the rear stood the Conductor; a Bell Punch machine hanging from cracked twin moons, the topmost buttons of his uniform. The metal of the antiquated device was dulled by age, leather-yellow fingers were stroking it with a lover's tenderness whilst a blind egg of glistening mortuary matter wore the conductor's cap. Pregnant sores were visible as a livid necklace around his throat, their discharge discolouring the unwashed china-blue collar of his shirt.
The Conductor cocked his head, catching a scent on the night air. He pulled a cord that hung above his head and a series of tinny chimes rang out inside the bus. The dried skin on the Driver's arms crackled as he turned left, following the Morse code instructions of his companion, depressing the accelerator. The Bus chugged, lurching forward as the engine sped up.
pokita-pokita-pokita
From the black hole of the Driver's neck fresh blood ran freely, displacing scabs that had grown over the puckered edges of the stump, torn veins and arteries were opening wide to disgorge a steady crimson flow as his fingers wound tight on the steering wheel. The Driver's open throat gurgled wetly, excited, as the Night Bus went on its way, seeking, that it might find.
He heard the engine first and then he saw it, in the moonlight, coming for him.
pokita-pokita-pokita
The sound of its machinery was old and tired, a dying animal preparing for one last lunge, a wounded soldier, bayonet in hand, about to impale an unwatchful foe. He backed away from its approach. The one working headlight of the Night Bus burst into life, catching him in its glare.
Run, rabbit, run, rabbit.
It bore down on him.
Run, run, run!
He turned and ran. His calf muscles clamping tight as he did, too old for this, whilst at his heels the Bus's rusty thunder grew louder and louder, an oncoming storm, the end of everything.
Hell's Teeth will be released in March 2012.
Copyright © G.R. Yeates 2012
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