Amid the Recesses: A Short Story Collection of Fear (6 page)

The girl gazed at Ian
uninhibitedly. She inched closer. “Another one will come, you
know.”

Ian nodded. He leaned back
on the bench and put his arm over the back of it. He read a sticker
slapped to the rotting wood that read, “Don’t eat the soup!” and
didn’t understand what it meant. He checked his watch.
Seven-thirty. Late. It was an unusual time for a little girl to be
out alone.

“
It’s been a long day.” He
said.

“
Why was it long?” She
asked.

“
Work. I
worked.”

“
Everyone
works.”

“
You don’t work.” He
said.

She fell silent.

He shrugged and looked down
the street to see if the next bus was on its way. It wasn’t. Sirens
whined in the distance. The noise echoed off of buildings and
cascaded down paved streets. Soon a convoy of ambulances and fire
trucks passed the two of them. Ian modestly observed the girl and
her reaction to the emergency vehicles. The girl didn’t look away
from him as the blue and red lights reflected off of the innocent
white of her face.

“
Are you usually out this
late without your parents?”

“
Are you usually out this
late without yours?” She asked in return.

Ian laughed. “Adults don’t
typically live with their parents. Kids do. I haven’t lived with my
parents for a long time.”

“
Oh—“ The girl looked to
Ian’s plain blue tie then back to his eyes. “Do you like being a
grown-up?”

“
I thought I asked you a
question first?”

When the girl didn’t answer, Ian
did.

“
Sometimes. I think you
guys have it better off than we do. No job. No
responsibility.”

“
Some of us have
res—pon—sa—bilidees.”

“
I’m not sure your chores
are quite the same thing.” He said.

“
Some of us do more than
that.” She said.

Ian smiled and nodded. He
looked at his watch. It’d only been a few minutes. No bus was in
sight. He leaned forward on the bench and buried his face back into
his hands.

“
Some of us have more
res—pon—sa—bilidees than adults!” The girl cried.

“
I bet some do.” Ian
grumbled into his sweating palms.

A frantic shuffling on
pavement caught his attention. He lifted his head from the
sanctuary of his hands to watch a swarm of people moving down the
street. Thick smoke rose from the earth near the end of the
street.

"Must be an accident or something." He
said.

The street became unusually
clear after the people disappeared near the smoky scene. Ian shot a
look down the street. He winced with the changing color of the
traffic lights. Green. Yellow. Red. The lights remained red and
didn’t change again. The sidewalks were void of pedestrians. The
lanes were void of cars. Fast food wrappers and newspapers blew
around in their stead and flopped end over end like idiots. A hiss
rose from the subterranean river beneath the city. There was a
pressure about the empty city—one either deflating like a dry tick
or preparing to explode.

“
What’s going on? Must be a
road block or something. Do you see anything?” Ian asked and stood
to get a better view of the bellowing cloud at the end of the
street.

A bus turned the corner in front of
the smoke and approached the bus stop.

“
There’s a bus! Hey, look
at that. Just when I thought my day would get worse, huh?” Ian
grinned and looked toward the bench. The girl was gone.

In the girl’s place was a
pink envelope. He surveyed the bus stop and streets. He was
alone.

“
You dropped one of your
envelopes!” He didn’t know her name. “Hey girl!” He shouted, but
his voice was overrun by the squeal of the bus’s brakes.

The bus’s doors released a puff of
air. The glass on the door wobbled as the doors opened with the all
the gracelessness of a child on new crutches. A black gentleman
dressed in a pressed blue uniform and a bus driver’s hat nodded to
Ian.

“
Hello, mister.” The bus
driver said. A huge white smile burst from his face.

“
Hello.” Ian replied with
half-attention.

“
Heading this
way?”

Ian peered toward the
entrances to the alleys. He scanned the area around the dark cloud
at the end of the street. There were no sirens or lights or people
anymore. The cloud grew.

“
Mister?”

“
Yeah.” Ian tapped the
envelope against his chest. “I’m sorry, I was looking for
someone.”

“
I don’t see anyone,
mister. Just you and me.” The bus driver’s smile grew.

Ian stepped into the bus.
“You and me and—“ Ian examined the inside of the bus. No one else
was in it. He paused next to the bus driver and held his
breath.

“
Behind the yellow line
now, mister.” The bus driver gestured to the painted yellow line
that ran from the driver’s seat to the inner corner of the stairs.
“Can’t have you getting hurt.”

Ian moved deeper into the
bus. “Don’t you think it’s a little weird that—“

The bus doors snorted and huffed like
an angry bull before closing.

“
We’re going to have to
take the eastern tunnel. I’m afraid there’s nowhere else to go,
mister.” The bus driver said apologetically. He watched Ian through
a scratched fisheye mirror.

“
The eastern tunnel?” It
was a long way around, but it would get Ian home. “A little quiet,
isn’t it? The bus, I mean.”

The bus driver began to whistle. He
didn’t respond to the question. He pushed down on the broad
acceleration pedal and the bus moved forward.

Ian found a seat near to
the front of the bus. The seats were all made of leather. Most of
the seats in the city buses were upholstered with cheap fabric. The
difference dated the bus. The windows were rusted. An “In case of
emergency” warning on a window was scraped away, which left a
shadow of clarity in the wind-beaten pane. The bus was torrid. It
caromed though the road was smooth.

“
How long until we reach
the Fargo stop?”

“
Hard to say, mister.” The
bus driver yelled over the engine.

Ian sat back into the
leather chair. His hand ran over the cracked surface of the chair.
His fingers traced the tears and shredded fabric webbing that
surrounded sweat-stained, yellow foam. The windows began to
sweat.

“
Think you could turn the
heat down?” Beads of perspiration clung to Ian’s forehead like
parasites to a host.

“
Afraid not, mister. It’s
only gonna get hotter, I bet. The tunnel and all.”

“
Is there air conditioning
or something?”

The bus driver went back to whistling
his tune.

Ian sighed and tried to
relax into the seat. A tap caught his ear from the floor of the
aisle. He looked to his right and noticed he’d dropped the pink
envelope. He reached down to lift the envelope from the ground but
froze.

“
Ian” was written in a
child’s temperament on the envelope. Ian noticed a tremble in his
hand.

“
Ian?” He said.
“How—“

“
Approaching the eastern
tunnel, mister.” The driver announced.

Ian ignored him. He lifted the
envelope and put it on his lap. He stared at it as the bus shot
into the tunnel. Lights at the top of the tunnel flew by one after
another which created a blinking effect in the bus.

Ian saw the name then
didn’t—
Ian
, then
nothing
, Ian,
then
darkness
, Ian…

Ian’s eyes rose to the fisheye mirror.
He saw the driver watching him. Darkness took the bus. When the
next light came, the bus driver stared forward.

Ian’s hands fumbled over the letter.
They were shaking.

“
I didn’t tell her my
name.” He said. “Did I?”

Ian observed the sealed
flap of the pink envelope for a minute. The engine of the bus
thundered in the tunnel. It became hotter in the bus and the sweat
trickled down Ian’s face into the collar of his shirt. The bus
driver’s whistling cut through the engine’s roar.

Ian tore open the pink
envelope and pulled a folded letter from it. He unfolded the
wide-ruled page and read the text written in purple gel
pen:

Ian Johnson,

If you’re reading this
letter, you’re in the eastern tunnel.

Ian paused. His mouth fell
open. Darkness consumed the bus before light was restored. He
continued.

I regret having this
responsibility.

Darkness. It became hotter.
Ian ducked behind the seat in front of him and pulled the letter
taut with both shaking hands. He whispered, "What the hell is going
on?"

You didn’t miss the bus
this afternoon. You were right on time.

The light became steadier,
but took on a red tone that lit up the bus like a strip mall dive
bar. Ian peeked around the seat toward the fisheye mirror and the
bus driver. The bus driver watched Ian as he was jolted back and
forth with the bus’s movements. He winked at Ian. Darkness. Ian hid
from the driver’s view. The bus became hotter.

That bus caught fire and
was consumed.

“
No it didn’t! No it
didn’t!” Ian shouted and shot up from his seat. “I was at the bus
stop!” Ian screamed at the letter. The inside of the bus glowed
with a dull red.

“
No need to fuss, mister.
We’re almost there now!” The bus driver yelled.

“
I need off of this bus. I
need off of this bus right now! Stop! Stop the bus!” Ian shouted
and ran toward the bus driver. He stepped past the yellow line and
down a sunken step near the door. “Stop it now!” He
cried.

“
Ain’t no use, mister.
We’re in a tunnel. Can’t let you off in a tunnel, can I?” The bus
driver smiled again. His smile was brown and twisted in the dull
redness.

“
You don’t understand—“ Ian
tapped the letter with his finger and sent ripples through the thin
page. “This letter says I’m going to be in a bus accident. I need
off of the bus!”

The bus driver shook his
head.

“
I believe the letter read
that ‘the bus caught on fire and was consumed,’ mister. It’s
already burned.” The bus driver frowned and his wide nostrils
flared.

“
H-How do you know that?”
Ian staggered and put his back against the door of the
bus.

Smoke leaked into the bus.
Smoke shot from the vents. Smoke crept from the holes in the seats.
Smoke crawled along the floor aisle like a heavy mist. Smoke
crowded the bus where it was empty.

The bus driver leaned forward and
turned the radio knob. A bluesy tune filled the bus in the
chaos.

And the day keeps
reminding me, there’s a hellhound on my trail.

It was the same tune that the bus
driver had whistled.

Hellhound on my trail,
hellhound on my trail.

“
This here—“ The bus driver
pointed to the radio. He rocked back and forth and shook his head.
“—this is Robert Johnson, mister. You ever heard Robert Johnson?
They say the devil was after this man. Mm mm.”

Ian turned around and beat on the
closed door of the bus. “Let me out! Let me out of here!” He
shrieked. His fingers dug between the bus’s folding doors and he
tried to pry them open. The door didn’t give.

“
I’ll be damned! You two
share the same last name, don’t you, mister? I’ll be
damned.”

Ian didn’t ask how the bus driver knew
his name. Ian pulled on the metal doors until his fingers bled. He
kicked the glass windows on the door, but they didn’t
break.

“
Stop the bus! Let me out
of here!” Ian plead. He fell against the doors and began to
sob.

“
We’re almost out of the
tunnel now, mister. You’ll be out in no time.”

You sprinkled hot foot
powder, mmm, around my door. All around my door.

Flames rose from the bus’s floor like
an ignited gas range. The flames licked around the bus driver’s
blue pant leg, but he did not catch. Like greedy, impish hands, the
fire wrapped around Ian and stung him.

“
Ah! Ah!” He screamed and
slapped the flames. He jumped wildly around the door.

“
Now you’re feelin’ it,
mister!” The bus driver swayed and danced in his chair. His hands
rolled the large driving wheel left and right, but the bus moved
straight through the tunnel. He sang with the music:

All I need is my little
sweet woman and to keep my company.

Ian ran from the door of the bus
through the rising flames. The flames climbed his body and burned
away his clothes and flesh. The louder he screamed, the louder the
music played. Ian fell to his knees in pain as the bones of his
feet melted and blood pooled around him. Flames lashed at Ian’s
chin and eyes. His eyelashes and hair singed and curled into ash.
As he stared forward and his nerve endings burned away, the girl
from the bus stop rose from the flames in front of him as if
birthed by the fire. She was dressed in her puffy pink jacket and
she smiled at Ian.