In The Town Where All Things Are Possible: Part 19
Need To Catch Up?
In the Town Where All Things Are Possible, the whispers began with a young woman in a waitress’s black slacks and apron, her back turned to the commuters, a cell phone pressed to her ear and urgency rising in her hushed voice. The Man and Alexandria joined the rest of the group in trying not to look at the shaken waitress. She ended the call, shoved the phone in her pocket, and stared at the approaching bus. She made a decision, walked back to the group to a young man in the same black waiter clothes, muttered something in his ear. The two glanced briefly at Alexandria. He nodded his head, and they both walked away.
The bus’s brakes whined as it inched to a stop. The door did not open, though. Instead, the beast idled and the commuters waited.
A distant voice emerged over the rumbling engine. The heads within the group all looked up to the open, second-story window of a nearby house. A woman was waving and calling. A businessman in a cheap three-piece suit and a secondhand briefcase stepped from the crowd.
“What, ma?” he called.
The woman waved him away from the bus stop. He looked back to the bus, for a moment unsure what to do. He then turned and walked back to the safety of his mother’s home. Seven people remained in the group. Alexandria could feel their anxiety in the way they shuffled, the flick of their eyes away from hers when she glanced at them. She pushed through the crowd to the still-shut bus door. A middle aged, plump bus driver was curled over a speaker to the bus’s two-way radio. Alexandria knocked on the glass door. The driver hesitated, then pulled the handle that opened the door with a hiss.
“I need to store my bags,” Alexandria said.
The driver replaced the speaker on its hook and straightened, taking a moment for himself before standing and climbing down out of the bus. He passed through the crowd to the bus storage compartments, unlocked one and lifted the door up. The Man walked over with Alexandria’s bags and placed them inside.
“That it?” the driver asked, but didn’t wait for an answer before closing the compartment. He returned to his driver’s seat as the crowd waited for his word. Alexandria watched the driver measuring himself in the side mirror. His eyes flicked from his reflection down to the group as he made his decision.
“Come on,” he announced, waving the group onto the bus. The line filed in, but the driver held up his hand when the Man climbed the stairs.
“Can’t do it, boss,” the driver grumbled.
“Only to the edge of town,” the Man said.
The driver considered, tapping his thumbs on the steering wheel.
“Only to the edge, no further,” the driver said.
“Understood.”
The driver picked up the speaker, untangled the coiled chord, and whispered into the receiver. A static voice warbled out and the driver quickly turned down the volume so only he could hear. He replied low, venturing a glance back at the Man. After a few exchanges, the driver sighed, replaced the speaker on its hook and closed the door. Muttering voices grew through the bus, some talking into phones, some talking to one another. All the voices were too low for Alexandria to decipher, but she knew what they were talking about.
“I guess the word’s out,” Alexandria said to The Man. “I’m a marked woman.”
“It will be fine.”
The bus door whined closed and the bus lurched forward. A woman cried softly near the back of the bus. Another low voice attempted to comfort her. Alexandria couldn’t bear to look back at them. The Man’s palm was sweating as his fingers tightened around hers. He watched the Town pass by the bus’s gaping, wide-eyed windows, mystified and uncertain. Alexandria fished her phone out of her purse, checked the time.
9:15 a.m.
So much time left. She tried not to think of the many ways the trip could go wrong. She tried not to think about how everyone on the bus could die because of her.
Her hand slid the phone back into her purse, then dug deeper to find the kitchen knife, still wrapped inside the towel. She pressed her fingers against the handle, gripped it for comfort.
9:15 a.m.
Enough time to abandon the bus and walk out of the Town. It was better to ride, Alexandria decided. In thirty minutes, the bus would be pulling into another downtown in another community where more buses could send Alexandria to the outer edges of North America. Within two days, she could be in Los Angeles or New York or Canada.
Alexandria glimpsed the marquee of The Wider World as the bus passed, then the skating rink, then a brief view of the office off in the distance, overlooking downtown from its perch on the hill.
Then the Town was behind them. Only a few modest neighborhoods stood between Alexandria and the town’s borders.
Movement drew Alexandria’s eyes to the window. A pack of feral dogs raced alongside the bus, mouths gaping wide, pink tongues flung out to the side in silly joy. Alexandria smiled, feeling hope, feeling a bit of her youth returning.
The bus was outpacing all the dogs but an angular greyhound that reached full sprint. It looked up at Alexandria for a moment, its legs churning. Then it lowered its eyes, focused on speed. It pulled forward, slightly ahead of the bus. The dog cut over quickly into the bus’s path. The driver jerked the wheel and stomped on the brakes. Blood sprayed up on the windshield. There came a faint thump as the body twisted underneath the bus.
Wheels screeched, screams erupted. The bus swerved to the left, straddling both lines of the highway, and settled to a stop. Alexandria scanned the bus. Women were crying, hiding their faces. Men were standing out of their seats, looking back toward the mangled body smeared across the asphalt.
The driver picked up the speaker. He held it to his mouth, glancing up into his rearview mirror. Alexandria met his glare as he spoke. He waited, still watching her. A response crackled out of the radio. The driver opened the front door and stepped down out of the bus. He opened the compartment, dug out Alexandria’s luggage and threw them to the shoulder of the highway. He closed the compartment and waited.
The Man stood up with Alexandria. The pair walked, silently, out of the bus. The driver rushed past them, climbed into the bus, closed the door, and the beast lumbered forward.
“How far do we have?” Alexandria asked.
“Three miles, maybe,” the Man answered. “That is the edge of the Town. Another twenty miles to the next town.”
“Okay,” Alexandria said, walking to her luggage. The Man followed and reached for a bag.
“No,” Alexandria snapped. “Go home. I’ve got it from here.”
The Man paused, then grabbed the bag. He faced her and waited.
“Go home,” Alexandria repeated.
The Man said nothing. Alexandria took her other bag and began walking off toward the fading silver reflection of the sun striking the fleeing passenger bus.
On both sides of the highway, the ground began to awaken.
CONTINUED…
