Part four
I sit back down into one of the seats; wearied, both physically and emotionally.
"…Are you okay?" Leak asks me.
"Yeah", I reply, lying. I take a look at my hands and see that they are shaking.
I think about how close I just came to throwing myself right into the jaws of the machine. What would have happened, I wonder, if Leah hadn't pulled me back? At what point would the illusion of the reflected bus and the parallel road have disappeared?
…Would they have vanished as I was leaping through the air, with the rush of the wind against my face? Or perhaps they wouldn't have appeared at all. Maybe I would have suddenly struck the wall of ever-cascading oily murk with a waterlogged scream of surprise, slamming my eyes tight shut as I was suddenly enveloped in that wall-like wave… the roar of the wind replaced by the muted, distorted rumble of the water…
…I can almost feel it now, as if I am there. My arms and legs flailing with the sudden change in pressure, panicked into opening my eyes, looking all around me in that wet and bleary darkness, looking for Courtney, for the bus…
...Only to find myself staring into the eye of the leviathan. Watching as the chains that operate its jaws clink rapidly round and round, as those rows and rows of black, barbed shards of teeth stretch out and endeavour to drag me down below into the depths… to tear me to pieces…
…I let out a sob and Leah squeezes me into a hug. "It's okay", she says. "You're okay".
*Look at me. Starting to cry in front of a stranger. Pathetic.*
I force my emotions down and struggle for control. I take a deep breath.
"Okay", I stammer, then, a little louder, as if trying to convince myself: "Okay".
We sit quietly for a while, looking out at the great vast sea.
"What did you see, Leah?" I ask her eventually. "In the wave?"
She grimaces, then makes as if to speak, but hesitates.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to", I say to her.
"No, it's okay… I saw my-" she hesitates again. "…My parents. And my siblings. The bus was full of them. I'm the best of them, I know it. I work the hardest, I'm the most loyal…" she clenches her fists. "Which sounds arrogant, I get it. But I have a big family, and most of them don't seem to give a shit about anything at all. And yet despite all this, my parents barely even acknowledge me. It's infuriating. Makes me feel like I hardly even exist". She looks down at her hands and then squeezes them together.
"I'm sorry to hear that. Families can be tough".
I tell her about Ryan, or Ry, as I call him. My brother. He lives with our Mom on the other side of town, and the last time I saw him- about a week ago- we had a big falling out. It's unlike us to argue, and it left a real bitter taste in my mouth.
"What happened?"
"Eh, I don't even know, really. I was in a bad mood and I said something about how he never sticks up for me… Which isn't totally true. He does, sometimes. But he got mad and said that as the older sibling I should be the one standing up for *him*, I said that he didn't need anyone to do that for him because he's 'so great'… and he angrily replied that I don't know shit… that I barely even knew him at all…" I shake my head. When I recount the argument out loud it all sounds so dumb.
Leah smiles. "It seems like you care about him a lot though. Tell me some of his strengths".
I am glad to do so. I tell her about how brave he is. How he understands people, and his impressive situational awareness. He adapts well, and he adapts quickly. And he's determined and he's confident. And he's just a fun dude to be around. He makes me laugh.
"He sounds like a good brother, on the whole", says Leah once I've finished. "I'd be much happier with a sibling like him, I think. Is he who you saw in the wave?"
"No", I reply. I tell her about my school life.
This feels kind of good, actually. Talking my issues and problems out with someone who seems to care. Just having an actual conversation, in fact.
*…Don't you remember, Yaz? This is what it's like to have friends.*
The thought is so tragic that it actually makes me laugh, a little.
Leah raises an eyebrow at me but I just shake my head. "… It's nothing".
"School can be rough. But, I'd be optimistic about the future. People get more empathetic as they get older, I think".
"…All of them?"
"…Well, most of them".
We share another small laugh.
Something catches our attention out at sea, and we turn to look through the window; the orange light of the sky reflecting and sparkling in the shattered shards of the broken glass.
A sign approaches. It stands by the side of the road; the poles extend down into the oily water, and the sign itself seems old and corroded.
'**NEW EDEN**' it reads. And below: '**City Two. 50 miles**'.
Both of these lines of texts are accompanied by lines of, what I'm guessing to be, Japanese. Once proudly stamped in brilliant white on a field of vibrant green, the letters are now rather difficult to make out. They are flaked and peeled to the extreme, and the colors have faded and sun-bleached to the extent that the white and the green are now almost the exact same shade.
Scrawled across it in thick blank paint (?) is the word: 'YOMI'.
…Someone graffitied that. Someone with a brain, or a mind, made the conscious choice to paint those letters. And it wouldn't have been an easy feat either; the sign lies a good 10 or so feet away from the edge of the road. They'd have had to swim to even get to it.
The sign whizzes by.
"*Yomi*…" I murmur, but Leah has no better idea about what it might mean than I.
'Fifty miles', though. That's something that we both recognize, at least. "Do you think that means we'll be on the water for another fifty miles?" Leah asks.
I shrug. "I guess there's only one way to find out".
So we wait.
I'm unable to fully relax, though.
For obvious reasons of course, but, it's more than that. I'm ever-tensed; waiting, waiting for that orange light at the front of the bus to buzz menacingly back to life. For the distorted and near impossible-to-understand crackly voice to mumble through the speakers… And for some monstrous, mechanical terror to rise up from the depths.
I think of the shuffling, four-legged behemoth I saw far out in the distance, right after exiting the tunnel.
That thing was colossal. Twice as big as the leviathan, at least, thought it was difficult to judge its true size based on how far away it was.
I look down into the oily water beside the road. That fathomless darkness. And I wonder how deep down it goes. I wonder what further monsters it could be hiding. What terrors lurk low in the depths. Directly beneath us, perhaps, at this exact moment.
I pale, and turn my gaze back to the front window.
\*
As the murky ocean beneath the perpetually sunset sky rolls by, Leah and I try asking the driver a number of questions to pass the time.
We ask where we're going; we ask who programmed him; we ask what happened to the world around us… But each query is met with nothing more than an irritated rap of his newly-skinless, wire-exposed knuckles against the 'DO NOT TALK TO DRIVER' sign by the wheel, or a little glossy route map slammed hastily down on the counter.
…The only thing that generates a response is a request for sustenance. The crappy little bus-bathroom stall at the back has no faucets, only a soap dispenser, and once I tell the driver that we're feeling lightheaded, he actually gets up from his seat.
I am aware of a series of little clicks and whirrs with his movements that I had not noticed before.
Expressionlessly, and with the bus still driving, he crouches down and draws out a small plastic crate from beneath his seat.
He turns and drops it by the front row of seats, then returns to his original position.
Leah and I exchange a look, and we pull back the lid.
Inside are some plastic bottles of water. Alongside are some bags of chips; packets of cookies, and some unmarked, sealed cans. It's not exactly much, but… it'll do, for now. The water especially is a hugely refreshing relief. Leah rubs her chin and looks through the glossy little bus route in her hand as I twist open a bottle's cap and gulp the liquid welcomingly down. It's warmer than I would prefer… but beggars can't be choosers. It's fine.
"I can't read this", Leah says eventually after checking through the whole thing, waving it in the air. "I think it's in Japanese too!"
I remember that I still have a copy of the route in one of my pockets. And I'm pretty sure it was in English…
…I fumble around until I have it, and I spread it out on one of the little fold-down tables on the back of the seat in front. I study it a little closer, and with a more focused attention this time.
'NEW EDEN ROUTE MAP' it reads in the top left. The rest is just a printed series of lines, marked at intersections by little colored squares. It's hardly a 'map' at all, in fact. There's one long white line that runs down the very middle of the page, and several other lines, these ones in gray, that branch away from it at various intervals.
The base of the line, at the very bottom, features a blue colored square. This is labelled 'Ararat', accompanied by a crude little mountain symbol.
Further up the line is a yellow square marked 'City One', and beyond it, in white: 'City Two'.
'City Three' is marked higher still, in red, but the naming convention ends there. Below and above, along the line, are marked a series of stations, simply labelled: 'Station W; Station X; Station Y; and Station Z'. The final unique labelling on the route is an orange square near the very top, called: 'Axis-Mundi'.
*Yomi… Axis-Mundi… Cities One to Three…*
This isn't helping us at all. It's only throwing up more questions.
We're assuming that the bus in on route between City One, and City Two. We are yet to actually pass any of the 'Stations' marked at the map, if the thing is indeed correct.
"When we reach the stations", I begin, "do you think the bus is going to stop?"
Leah screws up her face in uncertainty. "I don't know… It could do, I guess… But I have a bad feeling that it won't".
"Yeah", I reply, "I feel the same".
The bus passes by another sign out in the water. It's largely electronic, or at least, it was, once.
In faded, printed text above the screen it says: 'THE OPERATORS ASK YOU TO REMAIN VIGILENT'.
Beneath is another line of Japanese, and below them both is the broken screen. Billboard-sized. Dead and cracked. I think I catch a brief glimpse of a few lines of glitchy orange-pink crackle down a couple of the remaining panels, but it could just be a trick of the light. A reflection from the sky, or the sea perhaps.
And it whizzes right by.
"This whole place is so…" Leah struggles for the words. "…*Poisoned.* Run-down. I bet it never used to be like this".
"You think?" I ask her.
"That's what I think. I wouldn't be surprised if all this water or oil or whatever isn't even supposed to be here at all. Or at least, not so high up… so close to the bridge, to the road…"
She might well be right. It would help explain how someone was able to get to that first sign to graffiti it.
*'Someone'… Could someone like us actually be out here? Someone alive?*
I am hit by a painful twinge of guilt as I think about the girl we failed to keep safe on the bus. I try not to think about what might have happened to her.
…What might be happening to her at this exact moment.
But I needn't have bothered trying.
My thoughts are interrupted anyway, as something dark smacks up against the glass on the right hand side of the bus. Leah and I both look up. There's a wet mark on the window, and as we study it, another dark shape flies up and out of the sea, this one flying right through one of the great cracks and smacking into a nearby seat. It falls to the aisle of the bus and starts spinning around in a slow circle, gnawing and gnashing at the air, leaking oil over the floor as it does so.
I recoil in horror.
The thing is an abomination. An eyeless, mechanical fish. Whirring and grinding . Its jaws catch on the edge of the seat and it latches on, crunching and biting and scraping away the outer layers of the thick plastic…
And the torrent begins.
A third jumps up from the flat sea beyond the road, then a fourth a fifth and a sixth. Then a dozen more, and they just keep coming. Slamming themselves up against the side of the bus, they aren't quite strong enough to smash the glass, but occasionally some of them make it through the holes in the windows, the cracks and gaps.
And they bring chaos.
"JESUS!" I shout as one flies past my face. I feel one whirr against my leg and I scream, kicking it away towards the back.
Leah squats to pick up the arm she was using before as a weapon, and with a grunt of frustration she swings it around like a bat- and smacks one of the terrible fish with a shower of bolts and little gears, sending the remains of the monstrosity back out and into the sea.
She stares at me, her expression a picture of 'Did You Just See That!?', and I can't help a laugh.
It's a crazy laugh, one mingled with the fear and the panic, but it fuels me. I empty the food crate into one of the seats and start using it to scoop up the furiously biting little machines, hurling them promptly back out the bus and into the water. I do as Leah did and wield the crate as a kind of bat as they fly towards us, to mixed success.
"Ah FUCK!"
I wasn't paying attention. One of the machines on the floor has taken the top layer of skin from the side of my foot, along with a good chunk of shoe. It stings like hell but I don't slow down. I scoop up the fish with the crate and fling it through the hole in the back of the bus.
It lands on the road with a splatter of oil and a burst of bolts, and it flounders there in the heat of the sun.
My mind races.
*The driver. The driver responds to certain things, doesn't he? Not everything, but some things…*
I sprint to the front, raising the box as a shield to cover my face as one of the machines slams into it, biting and clanking down loudly to the floor. I kick it through a gap in the wall.
"Driver!" I say, heart pounding. "Your BUS IS IN DANGER. If you don't do something now, the passengers inside are going to get seriously hurt!" To emphasize the point I reach down a hand and wince as I press it up against my foot, then show the driver the bloodied palm.
He never takes his eyes off the road, but, I think he gets the message.
He adjusts his stance and knocks the bus down a gear, and the engine roars as the vehicle accelerates.
I stumble where I stand and look out the window.
We've definitely increased our speed, but it's not by enough. The nightmarish contraptions keep coming. More of them miss, now, but there are still those that smack into the bus's walls, and there are still those that make it through. Leah ducks as one comes whirring through a window and over the top of her head.
One of the biting and writhing machines lands right near our food, and I quickly grab it by the tail (it's heavier than it looks) and fling it back out through one of the windows, before it has a chance to tear our remaining supplies to shreds.
My hands, when I look at them, are covered in oil. Bluergh. Gross, but the real worry is the fact that I don't know what the fluid is. It *could* be oil, but I don't know what microorganisms or germs might make up the scum of the black sea. I don't need any additional worries, especially not from some kind of unknown infection.
So I just keep on using the crate, the poor quality weapon that is.
I keep using it. I keep using it until it has broken and snapped into useless shards.
Leah and I keep fighting away the monstrous, fish-like machines, though she is better at dodging them than I. She is more aware of where they are on the bus.
We defend ourselves for another twenty long and exhausting minutes, the time it takes for the bus to finally clear the bridge and return to the gray-black wastes of the desolate land. I never thought I'd feel this way, but I'm actually *relieved* to see it. My feet sting like hell, and as I finally collapse into a seat to catch my breath, I wince as I look down at them. Bruised and scarred, chunks of shoe are missing… and across the skin there are pinpricks and trickles of blood.
"Are you okay?" Leah asks, leaning across from her own seat to put a hand on my knee.
She's gotten off much lighter than I. I try for a reassuring smile. "Yeah, I'm all good, thank you".
She looks down at my legs and frowns. She grabs one of the bottles of water and starts to gently pour a trickle of water over each ankle.
"Leah, don't- that's our only water".
"I know, please, I won't use much".
…I let her do it.
I look out the windows at our surroundings. It's flatter here than it was before. Gray-black sand extends far out across the plains- a dark and empty desert.
Well, not entirely empty. Less rock here than the previous stretch of land, less evidence of once-proud buildings… But there are lampposts. Or the remains of such. They stand at irregular intervals, suggesting that not all of them have survived, and their bases are all buried beneath the sand.
…Some border the road, but occasionally they stretch out in lines across the desert, marking paths that no longer exist.
We must have passed at least fifty before I see one that still works, and I use 'works' in the loosest sense of the term. My eyes follow it as it passes us by, flickering faintly in white.
"Yaz, check it out". Leah tugs my sleeve and I turn to look through the front window, leaning forwards in my seat.
The most 'in-tact' building I've seen so far lies ahead. It has been scorched pretty much entirely black, and stands at about two stories tall. To be honest, it could well have been taller, once. Next to this building is a huge pile of rubble, of broken machinery and parts… stacked high into an impassable tower.
And as we approach, it quickly becomes clear that this tower of rubble has actually been built on the road itself. As an obstacle. Maybe a deliberate one.
"Yaz", Leah murmurs again, more urgently this time.
"What is it?"
"Look on the ROOF".
I do so, and my pulse immediately starts to race yet *again.*
*This is relentless.*
A *human man* has appeared from the shadows, and paces forwards and backwards on his perch. I can't make out any of his features from this distance, but he wears a long brown and oil-stained coat.
…He's watching us.
He's watching the bus.
"Should we do something?" I ask, "should we alert the driver?"
But Leah doesn't know, and the time passes. Our decision is made for us.
The tower of rubble and broken machinery draws closer and closer. For a terrible moment I expect the driver to keep pace, or to even accelerate and to try and smash right through it… But he doesn't. He draws the vehicle down through the gears and the bus starts to slow…
…And I realize what the stranger means to do.
"Oh my God, Leah, he's going to jump. He's going to jump onto the roof".
She stares at me, then grabs the headrest of a nearby chair to peer up and out of the window for a better look.
The bus slows, and the driver veers us slightly offroad, around to the right, between the great pile of rubble and the ruined building. The ground becomes bumpier and the vehicle shakes…
…and sure enough, the stranger jumps from his perch. He disappears from sight, and a second later we hear a loud thump on the roof.
The bus is brought around the great, dark tower and back onto the road, where it quickly accelerates up to its previous speed.
For a moment there is only strained quiet. My breathing comes loud. And then…
"*Open the damned hatch!"* calls a voice from the ceiling. My stomach twists.
"Who are you?" Leah calls, "what do you want!?"
"*Just let me in already, I'm not going to hurt you!"*
I rise from my seat and step down the aisle towards the little door on the roof.
"Yaz, stop! What are you doing?"
But I don't stop. I don't stop because in my heart, I recognize this voice. It doesn't sound quite as it should, but it's familiarity is plain.
I stand on a chair and reach up to turn the latch, and the ceiling door slides open with a clank.
A dusty brown boot pushes hastily through, and then another. Leah grabs me by the shoulder and draws me back, and we watch as the tails of a long and tattered coat fall through, and with a loud grunt a grim-faced man jumps down and into the bus.
…Grim-faced, yes. But his eyes shine bright. They stare right into mine, so full of relief and of love they are that I can't help my own from watering.
He is battered and scarred, and a good fifteen years older than he should be…
…But I recognize this man.
This man who should still be a boy.
It's Ryan.