“There, there, you’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine.”
But the boy remembered that the driver had not taken a swig of the red juice.
“How come he wasn’t poisoned?” the boy asked.
“Because he has to drive the bus. We will be dropped off for the dragon’s meal. The bus driver will leave, as he always does. The dragon will not, and cannot suspect a thing.”
“So he gets to live?”
“It wasn’t his choice. We chose him,” the woman said. “We chose him because he has the best reason to go on living. He’ll make a difference in this world. He will lead humanity from these ashes.”
The boy wanted to ask why not him, why couldn’t he ride back with the bus driver. But he had survived this world for far longer than most his age because he knew to keep quiet. He had one intention and that was to steal the antidote. He just had to figure out when was the best time to do so.
A loud burp erupted from the fat man. “He crunched several paper cups in his hand and tossed them under the seats. While his crudeness was not appreciated, the other passengers regarded him with pride.
He was their secret weapon, his size likely capable of withstanding a greater dose of the poison.
And with that sound of his burp, some of the passengers began to sing (out of key) Amazing Grace. The bus trolleyed on, an unlit funeral pyre. The boy trembled in it. Though the vibrations disguised his fear and anticipation.
He gazed out the window, trying to remember where they were. He had wandered the ruins of the city for long enough that he’d discovered most of the landmarks, but he had been heading in a similar direction as the bus was going, only he intended to visit the old baseball stadium. If only to run the bases like he once imagined he’d do as an adult—in uniform—in the ninth inning of a recently broken tied Game 7.
Maybe if these people did succeed he could live that dream. There sure as heck would be a large enough age gap in the talent pools where he could sneak onto a roster. And it was that thought, that dream that could still burn within him that didn’t want to be fed to the dragons.
What if there wasn’t enough poison within them to kill it?
What if it tasted it and spit out the tainted charred meat?
Then all the boy and the passengers of the bus would just be dead.
Skeletons of ash until the next rainfall.
No time revealed itself as prudent until the last moment. Then as the passengers lined the aisle to march to their doom, a doom glorified by the doom of the dragon, the boy made his move.
Just as he passed the driver, he snagged the bag he was certain contained the antidote. Hands ripped at the boy’s tattered clothing, but it was dry rotted and tore easily, allowing the boy to leap from the bus.
The heat of the dragon’s presence burned him, made his eyes water, his throat dry out, and his skin ache as it began to blister. The dragon merely snorted at his on of his escaped hors d’oeuvres.
But the passengers screamed at him.
“Get back here!”
“You’ll die anyway!”
“You bastard!”
“Just let him go!”
“But what if it’s not enough! We dispersed it between all us. That means we’re four ounces short!”
“It’ll work,” the bus driver urged. “It has to!”
And so the driver let the boy run, run as far away as he could, clutching the antidote in his hand. He would take it no long after he found an old culvert to hide form the sight of the dragon in. Though the warmth of the great creature filled the air with steam and the feeling of the hottest day of summer.
Then he heard the bus drive by, rattling and polluting its way back to the other human survivors. As its noise faded, it was replaced by screams of the passengers.
The tainted, charred meat.
Though the dragon fell ill, and slumbered in agony for many weeks, it was still before the smoke that clouded the skies had dissipated that the dragon rose and exacted its revenge.
The boy survived that too.
But there was no one else around to blame him. In fact, he was sure the dragon spared him in thanks—at least until he was the last piece of human delicacy in the city.
THE END
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