The Late Bus (Night Fall ™)

by Richard Reece

  When we found the bus, Father Mark unzipped his black bag and pulled out a cross, a black book too skinny to be a Bible, and a bottle of water. From a pocket in his robe he pulled out a long, purple silk scarf. He put it across his shoulders so the ends hung down in front.

  “Nikki,” he said to her, “you take the book and hold it open for me. Mr. Bronski, hold up this crucifix.”

  “I’m not Catholic, sir,” Bronski said.

  “That’s all right, if you don’t have any objection,” Father Mark said, and Bronski held up the cross.

  13

  Father Mark began reading from the book Nikki was holding, making crosses in the air. Then he opened the bottle and sprinkled water on the bus.

  Did anyone else hear it groan? I thought. Father Mark circled the bus. With each sprinkle, the groans from the vehicle grew louder. After a minute the bus started to shake. It looked and sounded like a cornered animal trying to lash out at its attacker. Each drop of water provoked screams of what seemed like pain.

  None of the others acted like they heard any of this, but I could tell that Father Mark felt something. By the time he’d circled the bus, his face was pale and his voice tight. Sweat rolled down his forehead. He had stopped reading from the book, but he was praying nevertheless, murmuring in what I guessed was Latin.

  Finally he sighed, looked at Nikki and Bronski, and said, “We have to go inside the bus.”

  “We don’t have a key,” I said. But Notso stepped out, reached into his pocket, and produced a small, crooked piece of wire. You never know what to expect with Notso. It took him maybe twenty seconds to open the bus.

  When the door opened, an indescribably putrid stench—like rotting meat—washed over us in hot waves. Bronski fell to one knee and started to retch. “Don’t drop the crucifix!” Father Mark warned. I grabbed it just as Bronski lost his lunch.

  “Lamar! Nikki! Follow me!” the priest commanded, and we climbed into . . . I’ll call it hell. The stench, the heat, the sound of screaming—and the bus was swarming with flies of all kinds. Bluebottles, horseflies, and black flies buzzed and dived and bit.

  Over it all, Father Mark shouted his prayers, throwing them out like punches, and sprinkled his holy water from the front of the bus to the back. As the battle got fiercer, my hand—the one with the cross in it—began to burn. I could see it getting red and blistered, but I held on as tightly as I could. Nikki tried to hold her book steady as tears ran down her cheeks. Flies clustered around her hair and eyes.

  Father Mark thundered in English, “Begone! I command you in the name of all that is holy! Begone!” And I could feel something break. The bus stopped shaking, the screaming and the smell died away, and the flies streamed out the door and vanished into the cold air.

  I put an arm around Nikki, who was crying softly. Father Mark leaned against a seat and tried to catch his breath. “Are you two all right?” he asked. We nodded slowly. “You guys requested a blessing,” he said. “I didn’t expect an exorcism.”

  “An exorcism?”

  “Satan owned this bus,” Father Mark explained. “I don’t know why. But we—well, the Lord—kicked him out. He can’t work here anymore.”

  We thanked the priest and gave him back his stuff. Outside, Bronski was better. Notso just kept saying, “Man, I’m never going to say ‘this stinks’ about anything else again. That thing that happened when I opened the bus? That stinks.”

  Big, purple clouds were filling the sky by the time we were ready to leave, and the breeze was picking up. “There’s a nor’easter coming,” the priest said as we parted. “Did you hear?”

  We hadn’t. I dropped the others at their homes, and by the time I got to my place the wind was blowing hard, the temperature was dropping, and sleet was in the air.

  14

  I like storms. Not just because they cause school closings, like this one did. I like them because they’re simple and powerful—just the same way they’ve been ever since the planet started. When there were no people, still somewhere there were blizzards and thunderstorms, the same way there were stars.

  The nor’easter dropped about two feet of snow on Bridgewater. Power was out at my house for most of Friday—they usually start fixing things in town and then work their way out. When I looked out the front door on Friday afternoon, though, the world was peaceful and beautiful, glittering pure white in the sun. No one was going anywhere for a few days.

  When I let Marcus out, he went crazy bellysurfing in the snow. After a while I walked out to shovel the drive. It’s a long way—people ask why we don’t have a snowblower— but I like the workout I get from shoveling snow.

  By nightfall the power was back, and I called Dad at the hospital. He was starting to get a little restless, talking about getting back to work and all. “Dad,” I said, making my voice deep like his, “you’ve got a gift here, and a burden. Your gift is a chance to relax; use it. Your burden is that you don’t have a choice; live with it.”

  It made him laugh. “OK, Lamar,” he said. “Those are wise words.”

  So I guess I was feeling good. Part of that was what had happened at the bus lot. I thought maybe Father Mark and the rest of us had really scared away Rumble’s “wolves.”

  On Saturday morning I felt like taking a walk through the woods. Marcus was up for it, and the day was fresh and bright. We both had some work to do getting through the snow, but we knew the path by heart: down a steep hill into a wooded ravine, then along a creek bed for a mile or so till the path started going uphill. When we got to the top of the ridge, it was just a few hundred yards to the main road. We’d follow that back home.

  The ridge had a fine view of the countryside. There was a little graveyard there that no one had taken care of for a long time. The five or six headstones were worn smooth, although you could read the date 1791 on one of them. Someone’s birth or death, I didn’t know which. As we passed the stones, I remembered it had been just three weeks ago that Miss Robin was buried.

  “Thank you for remembering, Lamar.”

  She was sitting on one of the headstones, still wearing her white dress, seeming not to mind the cold. She studied me.

  “So, you and Mr. Robert Emmett had a talk.”

  “Yes, ma’am. He wanted me to help him.”

  “Well, maybe you can, Lamar, maybe you can.”

  “He kept talking about wolves, Miss Robin. He said they were chasing him. In his dreams, anyway.”

  “Well, I told you about evil following him around. Someone like you, Lamar, you can probably see it.”

  “It looks like shadows.”

  Miss Robin smiled. “Or mice, or flies.”

  “But why is evil after him, Miss Robin? He doesn’t seem like a bad man. He tried to rescue that girl, Penny. He risked his life.”

  “He lost his life, Lamar.”

  “But . . . he’s here. He drives a bus. Dead people can’t . . .”

  “He’s here because he has some work to do, Lamar. It’s like this. When Mr. Emmett went over that cliff with Penny, what do you suppose he was thinking?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose he was scared.”

  “He was angry, Lamar, angry at himself. He believed the crash was his fault, that Penny’s dying was all his fault. And the last thought that went through that poor man’s brain was, ‘If there’s a hell, I deserve to go there.’”

  “But he was wrong! He did what he could.”

  “That wasn’t the way he saw it, Lamar. You see, when a person dies, if they are more or less peaceful, if they can say to themselves, ‘I did what I could,’ then they can pass on into peace. But if not, if they hate themselves or they think they’ve done something no one can forgive—that’s called despair. And evil—it does exist, let me tell you— sniffs out despair and tries to own the soul of that person.”

  “But evil—the wolves—didn’t get him.”

  “That’s because of Penny. She knew that Mr. Emmett had tried to save her. And she used her wish to give h
im a second chance.”

  “Her wish?”

  “When a good person dies, sometimes on their way to where they’re going they get a chance to help someone they care about. It’s a powerful chance, more powerful than life or death sometimes, especially for someone as innocent as a child, like Penny.”

  “She gave Mr. Emmett his life back?”

  “A second chance, Lamar. He will die again someday. Everyone dies, you know. But he has some time to change. Time to accept himself, to forgive himself.”

  “But the wolves are still after him.”

  “Oh, yes. They feel cheated, and they’ll try very hard to take him back before he can change. Meanwhile, they’ll try to make him hate himself even more.”

  “Can’t I just explain to him that he’s not to blame?”

  “Remember when you told him that Penny said thank you?”

  “He said, ‘She’s got nothing to thank me for.’”

  “Mr. Emmett has to find his own peace.”

  I told Miss Robin about blessing the bus, although she probably already knew. She smiled, nodded, and said, “Well, maybe you should’ve done that when I was driving. Maybe that old thing would have started easier in weather like this.”

  And then she was gone. I stood there for a minute, looking out from the ridge at the miles of white hills and black winter trees. This world. Then Marcus and I started home.

  15

  By Saturday afternoon I could hear the snowplows out on the main road. I played my DS, watched some hoops on TV. I phoned Dad, and we actually watched part of a game “together” while we talked. Later I whipped up some scrambled eggs and toast for supper. I was eating when I got a text from Nikki: turn on channel 5.

  It was the news. A reporter was talking to a priest in a brown robe like Father Mark’s.

  “. . . and we’re all in shock here at St. Philomena,” the priest was saying. “He was extremely popular—well-loved by the students, the other faculty, and his brother Franciscans.”

  “And that’s the story, Tom,” the reporter said. “There’s a real sense of sadness here at the tragic loss of this young priest. School officials say that grief counselors will be available for students coming to class on Monday, and school will be closed on Tuesday so that students and faculty can attend Father Mulroney’s funeral.”

  Mulroney? I phoned Nikki. “That’s Father Mark!”

  “It’s so awful, Lamar! I can’t believe we just saw him, and now he’s gone!”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s so weird. Aunt Kate told me. Thursday night, when the weather was so bad, he got a phone call. The caller told the priests Father Mark lived with that an old nun was dying out at Precious Blood—it’s a convent way out in the country. The caller said the nun was begging to see a priest, and Father Mark said he’d go. The other priests told him it was too dangerous to be out on the road, but he just said, ‘Duty calls,’ and started out.”

  “Did he make it?”

  “Yes! That’s the weird thing. When he got there no one was dying, and they said no one had called a priest.”

  “And?”

  “What could he do? He got in his car and started back. On the way, while he was still out in the sticks, he saw a car in trouble on the side of the road. He pulled over to help. They needed a tire changed. While he was changing the tire, another car came speeding by and hit him. They say he was killed on the spot.”

  “Oh, man!”

  “But whoever hit him didn’t even stop. The people he was helping say it was a black car, but it was so dark they couldn’t get a license number. The police are looking for a car with damage, but . . .”

  “In that blizzard, the driver probably never saw him.”

  “That’s not what the witnesses say, though. They said the car was going slow at first, like it was looking for something. When it got near, the driver put on the high beams, sped up, and swerved toward Father Mark! It’s like they were trying to hit him!”

  I started to get a really creepy feeling. “Nikki, you don’t think this had anything to do with the bus, do you?”

  Silence for a few seconds. Then, “I don’t know what to think. I’m scared.”

  16

  I spent a good part of Sunday at the hospital. Dad was walking around, excited about the balloon thing they were going to do on Monday. When I got home, I flipped on the news. “The police still have no leads on the hit-and-run accident that killed Father Mark Mulroney . . .”

  On Monday I drove to school. I would have taken the bus, because later in the day I wanted to see if the blessing made any difference. But there was a chance I’d be bringing Dad home that day, so I needed the car.

  So much for planning ahead. At lunch I got a call from Dad: they were running a couple more tests, and his procedure had been moved to Tuesday. After ballet, I wandered down to the foyer where the late-bus kids were gathered and saw Principal Weston addressing the group, a big grin on his face. A student from the computer center was videotaping him. I walked up next to Nikki, who gave me a look.

  “As you all know,” Weston was saying, “nothing is more important to Bridgewater High School than the safety and well-being of our students. That’s why we’ve prevailed on Coastal Transportation to replace the old activity bus with a new, state-of-the-art vehicle. In addition to exceeding current emissions standards, this bus is equipped with high-tech security cameras. That way any incidents reported by passengers can be verified and appropriate action taken.” At that point, the new bus pulled up outside the glass doors behind him.

  There were ooh’s as we all moved outside to look. As I passed Weston he smirked at me and said, “Nice, eh Lamar?”

  It wasn’t a school bus. It was more like the kind of bus college sports teams travel in. Tall and long, with tinted windows. Seats with cloth upholstery and padded headrests. High in the adjustable driver’s seat, a video screen and a microphone on his left, sat Rumble, looking kind of lost in his same old jacket and cap.

  “Wow,” I said to Nikki, “this is pretty cool.”

  “Maybe,” she said, not smiling, “but it probably hasn’t been blessed.”

  She was right about that. As the students crowded around the door, shreds of shadow mingled with them and flowed into the bus. Nikki was the last one on. I waved at Rumble and headed to the parking lot. I’d been in the car about ten minutes when my phone rang. It was Nikki, and it sounded like she was crying.

  “What’s the matter, Nik?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, Lamar! I’m just so . . . sad. Everyone on the bus is crying. I started thinking about Father Mark and . . . Why did that happen to him?” She started to sob. “Why do bad things happen to good people, Lamar? It just makes you feel like . . . like giving up!”

  “Hold on, Nikki. Did you say the whole bus is crying?”

  “It’s just weird, Lamar. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so . . . OH MY GOSH!”

  “What?”

  “The kids who just got off are screaming! I think we ran over someone!”

  The bus ran over someone? Who?

  “Nikki, where are you?” I asked, my voice louder than I meant it.

  “We’re at Notso’s stop!” she said, gasping.

  17

  I made a U-turn and drove toward Notso’s corner. I was two blocks away when I got to the police cars blocking the scene. I parked and ran to where the bus was. A bunch of kids were standing around, including the late-bus regulars. I was so glad to see that Notso was among them. I could’ve hugged the guy.

  “What the heck happened?” I asked.

  “Dude tried to kill himself!” Notso said. “He got off the bus, and when it started up again, he jumped under the back wheels!”

  “Is he dead?”

  “No,” Nikki said, “thanks to Notso and his friend. They dragged him out just when the tire bumped him.”

  “Yeah,” Notso said, “but he was still really messed up. Crying, and like he was trying to get away so he could
jump under the tires again!”

  “I saw him crying on the bus,” Nikki said. “Just like I was. It was like this gloom settled on everyone.”

  Bronski nodded. His eyes were red. “I couldn’t believe how depressed I was getting. We were on the bus for just a few minutes, and I started thinking about all the saddest things that ever happened to me. I went from thinking about mistakes in chess to asking what’s the point of anything? Why even bother living?”

  “Are you guys OK now?” I asked.

  They all said yes, that the sadness started to go away when the commotion started.

  “Where’s Rumble?” I asked. Then I saw him, sitting on the bottom step of the bus with his head in his hands. I walked over.

  “Are you OK, Mr. Rumble?”

  He looked up at me from bloodshot eyes and said, “I just about killed a kid. Again.”

  “Is that what the police think?”

  “No, they said I can go. But death keeps following me around, Lamar. I’m cursed!”

  “It wasn’t your fault. I’m sure of that,” I said, but Rumble only shook his head.

  There were several students still on the bus and at least ten more were standing around outside, wondering what they should do. The officer told Rumble not to worry, that the police would see that the kids got home. Rumble sighed, got into the empty bus, and drove off.

  I dropped Bronski at his house and then drove Nikki to hers. No doubt, Principal Weston would soon hear about this.

  18

  A scare was all it turned out to be, luckily. Notso called that night to say his friend wasn’t hurt, just confused. Even he couldn’t figure out why he’d done what he’d done. Just like Nikki didn’t understand why she’d started to cry.

  And the late bus was still in business. Principal Weston came on the PA the next morning to announce that the new-and-improved bus would continue as scheduled, despite the previous day’s “suspicious disturbance.” Then he called four students, including Nikki, Notso, and me, to his office.

  He was in a bad mood. “Can any of you tell me what happened last night?”