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ean had his share of scars. Some were more visible than others. There was a three-inch inch scar across his right forearm. He received that one courtesy of a motorcycle accident several years back. It still itched from time to time. When it did he did what other people do; he scratched it. It was scars he couldn’t see that he had trouble scratching. He thought he found a solution.
As Dean looked at himself in the mirror he didn’t see the man he had become. The wheelchair that bound his legs had become just as invisible as the acne pock marks he’d received in his teens. All he saw was a scared little child from another era. The child wore his older brother’s leather jacket and had slicked back black hair. This was the boy that continued to haunt him. The jacket the boy was wearing was three sizes too big for him and hung off him like he was a coat rack. Dean didn’t care. His brother looked tough and cool when he wore the jacket and Dean wanted to be tough too. The act didn’t work. Apparently, he hadn’t been tough enough.
His childhood suffering left nothing but a husk. They called people like him survivors, but he didn’t survive; he just endured set back after set back. Dean wheeled himself over to his closet and pulled his old leather jacket off its hanger. He struggled to put it on and was amazed that it still fit. Like him, it had seen better days. Besides the slice in the right sleeve, it had actually held up better than he had.
A nickel-plated Colt .45 with ivory grips was placed neatly on a towel next to the sink. With his right hand he gripped the handle of the gun. It felt cool to the touch. He squeezed the handle as if it was the grip on his bike. The motorcycle didn’t survive the crash. Not that it mattered; he could never ride a bike again. He actually remembered seeing the bike as it crumpled up like a wrapper from a Mcdonald’s hamburger. When he collided with the tan Cadillac he was fortunate enough to fly over both his handlebars and the hood of the car. Maybe fortune had nothing to do with it. Maybe it should have ended there. Instead, he ended up landing upside down in the very spot that had caught his attention to begin with; his old bus stop. It also landed him in the wheelchair.
Actually the accident itself wasn’t very bad. He wasn’t traveling very fast when he hit the car. In fact, the bike took much of the abuse. It was the landing that did him in. The spine just wasn’t as flexible as it needed to be. It didn’t matter. The damage had been done long before. Dean pictured those moments as he placed the barrel against the side of his head. He didn’t close his eyes. He didn’t cry. He just pulled the trigger.
BANG! Red gore and brain matter splattered everywhere. The noise jolted Christopher awake. All he saw was red and then his vision slowly cleared. He climbed out of bed and heard it again. His heart thudded in his chest. Then he noticed it was the window shutters being blown around outside and began to relax. It was a good thing he woke up when he did. He was in the middle of a terrible dream. In it he was old, ugly and crippled, he had a gun in his hand and was about to shoot himself. It was a good thing he woke up when he did. His brother had told him that if you die in your dream, you die in real life.
At ten years old Christopher wasn’t ready to die. Not that life was wonderful or anything, but he still clung to the notion that once he reached the ripe old age of say twenty-three, things would be alright.
He was just about to close his eyes and go back to sleep when his mother called.
“Rise ‘n shine sleepy head. You don’t want to miss the bus.” His mother spoke in a light and airy voice.
Despite the pleasant sound of his mothers’ voice, something in her words stuck to him like a handful of tacks. He slipped out of bed and his protected feet landed on the cold black tile floor. He was starting to outgrow his favorite Star Wars sleeper, which matched the sheets and pillow case on his bed. Even though they pulled up on his crotch and pulled down on his shoulders, he wasn’t looking to turn them in any time soon.
Christopher slid his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth. He flicked on the light and with sleep in his eyes he fumbled for his toothbrush. With brush in hand he grabbed the tube of paste which promised to give him a brighter smile and squeezed it on. A big blob of red squirted onto his brush and all over his hands. Startled, he looked up and almost jumped out of his sleeper. In the mirror he saw a girl no older than he was. It was only a glimpse before her image was replaced by his, but it was long enough to stain his cornea.
With his heart pounding, Christopher blinked once, twice, swallowed, and then buried the frightful image into the tiny footlocker in his mind, which at the age of ten, was expanding way too fast.
Susan stared into her bathroom mirror for hours. She was clean, but all she saw was dirt, filth and grime. She had already taken three showers that day, but the dirt she felt could never be washed away. It clung to her insides like black tar. The only thing that took her mind away from the filth was cutting vertical slashes across her arms.
It didn’t make her feel any better, it just made her feel. It helped her realize that she was alive. She would cause physical pain to help mask the pain inside. Sylvia’s birthday was two days away. She would be twenty, but she didn’t feel twenty. For her it would be just another day. A day housed up in her small apartment, cut off from the rest of the world. It had gotten worse over the past month. Since she left her job in tears, she hadn’t spoken to anyone. She hadn’t even bothered to leave her apartment for food and her skeletal frame was reflecting her empty refrigerator.
Sylvia didn’t feel hungry anymore. The hunger pains went away several weeks before. All she felt was the dull throbbing of her arms as pinkish blood as thin as water seeped from the newest cuts on her arms. She continued to stare into the mirror as the blood dripped into the sink. She noticed that her brunette hair, which she always thought was oily and too thick, looked thin and dried out. She reached up and gave a little tug and it broke off in a chunk.
Like herself, she hadn’t bothered taking care of her apartment either. She looked in the sink and intermingled with old and new blood were strands and strands of hair she had started to lose over the last several days as the lack of nutrition started to take effect in other ways.
It didn’t take Sylvia long to come up with a solution. She opened up her medicine cabinet, grabbed a pair of scissors and began cutting. By the time she was done, she looked like a cancer patient. Again she looked in the mirror and despised what she saw. Even though she would spend hours and hours looking in the mirror, she hated to look at herself. It was like a train wreck that she didn’t want to see but she couldn’t peel her eyes away from. That’s when she realized what she needed to do. She opened up the scissors with one hand, looked in the mirror and drove the scissors into her eyes.
Christopher didn’t realize he had nodded off until he was shocked awake by an excruciating pain in his eyes. If Christopher had ever experienced a migraine, he would have thought it was that, only a hundred times worse. Since he never had experienced one; the only thing he knew was that it hurt like hell.
Since he was sitting in the very back, no one seemed to notice him fall asleep or wake up. Which was good because a little drool had escaped his lips and started to pool on his desk. As quickly as the pain hit him, it went away. He wiped his mouth and then did his best to pay attention. Before long, he had tuned out again and was busy doodling on his folder.
Christopher had always wondered why teachers sounded the way they did in the Charlie Brown specials on TV. “Wha-Whant-Wha.” As he sat at his desk, drawing his little doodles on his Pee Chee folder it dawned on him that the monotonous drone lulling him to sleep again sounded eerily familiar to those cartoons. He patted the top of his head to make sure he still had hair then felt the sides of his face to make sure his head hadn’t swollen like a beach ball.
Everything was normal, which was good. Although the thought of coming home to a white dog lying on the top of a dog house had a certain appeal. Even if he had to walk home with a kid carrying a blanket, it might be worth it. Charlie Brown walked home from school didn’t he? Christopher wished he could walk home from school. He hated taking the bus. He didn’t know why, he just did. He hated the smell, which was a mixture of oil, Old Spice, and flatulence. He hated the yelling and screaming of the kids and the chirping and constant vibration of the old ugly bus.
Most of all, Christopher hated the bus driver. The guy was just plain creepy, always smiling, gawking, and chewing on air. The potbellied driver must have been at least a hundred years old but he still insisted on dying his long beard an unnatural brown. There wasn’t much left on the top of the freaky guy’s head, but he dyed it too. For what? To look younger so he could pick up blue haired Betties at the bingo hall?
What bugged Christopher most about the guy was his eyes. The large lenses of his glasses made his eyes look like the giant eyeball that stared down at you from the ride “Adventure Through Innerspace” at Disneyland. And that was exactly what he did. He studied you as you climbed onto the bus. He studied you as you got off of the bus. The man’s wicked hazel eyes looked at you and then through you, stealing something within.
Christopher looked down at his folder and was troubled by what he saw. His doodles had taken a bizarre turn for the worse. Drawings like that could get him expelled from school. He quickly flipped the folder over just as the bell rang. Chairs screeched as they slid out from under desks and a hand slapped the back of Christopher’s shoulder.
The startled youth let out a yelp as he leaped from his seat fearing he had been caught after all. He turned around to find his best friend laughing at him.
“Wow! That was cool. I never seen someone jump using only there butt like that. You were like a Mexican jumping bean, only you’re not Mexican. Do they eat jumping beans?” Joel asked as he giggled.
Christopher grabbed his book bag and the two friends walked out of the classroom among screaming children. With his heart back in his chest Christopher responded. “They don’t eat them. My brother said they’re not a bean at all. He says it’s like a bug of some kind. Like a cocoon or something.”
“Bummer. I just thought it would be cool, you know, to eat a jumping bean and feel it jumping all around inside your stomach.” Joel explained as he wiped his long curly hair out of his eyes.
“Or better yet,” Christopher cut in, “what if when you ate them, it made you jump real high like you were on a trampoline, only you weren’t.”
“Yeah, now that would be cool.”
As they approached the steps leading into the bus, Christopher faltered.
“What? Something wrong?” Joel asked.
“Yeah . . . no . . . I dunno . . . Doesn’t the bus driver sorta creep you out?”
“Who? Mr. Lawrence? Naw, he’s cool. He looks like Santa’s brother.”
Christopher climbed up a step. “Santa doesn’t have a brother.”
“Yeah, but if he did, that’s what he would look like.”
Christopher looked at the bus driver. The driver looked back at him and smiled. Something sick crept within him and Christopher averted his eyes. He’s nothing like Santa Claus, Christopher thought to himself. Santa gives presents. That man, he just gives me the creeps.
Joel and Christopher fought their way towards the back of the bus. Being one of the most popular kids in school, it took Joel awhile to make it to his seat as he talked and chatted with row after row. Christopher realized that Joel must like the very back seat so he could socialize on the way there.
Christopher didn’t like the back seat and would often move up once his friend got off at his stop. When his friend exited, all Christopher wanted to do was get off as well. Unlike Joel, Christopher wasn’t sociable at all. He felt awkward in large groups of kids and could rarely find anything to say around anyone else other than Joel. He didn’t understand how the two of them hit it off so well.
The two friends had the long back seat to themselves despite the rest of the bus being overcrowded. Joel wasn’t big nor was he a bully. Christopher had never seen his friend threaten anyone, or get in a fight. Yet kids young and old seemed to hold him in high regard. Some of that regard rubbed off on Christopher, but mostly Christopher was just a shadow. Out of site, out of mind, was how he liked it.
“So what do you have against the bus driver? You used to like him.” Joel asked.
Christopher scrunched up his face and bounced up and down bringing his finger to his lips in a shushing motion, as if Joel was discussing U.S. secrets on a train bound for Moscow.
Whispering, Christopher responded “I just think he’s kinda’ creepy looking. I don’t know how to explain it. He just looks at you sometimes, like he’s going to eat you or something.”
“I think I know what you mean. I think it’s just ’cause he’s old. My grandparents, they freak me out sometimes. They smell like that Ben-Gay stuff. They’re always looking at me too. My mom says they’re just remembering what it’s like to be young. So maybe that’s what he’s doing.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Christopher replied, and left it at that.
Joel and Christopher sat in the back of the bus talking until Joel had to get off. Christopher was about to move further up, but then he saw the creepy bus driver staring at him through the rear view mirror. He sat back down instead and told his friend goodbye. Then he scooted over to the side window and daydreamed as trees and houses flashed past.
When the last child got off the bus, red fire ants began to sting Christopher’s insides. He began to feel light headed and his palms began to sweat. His breathing became erratic as he took in little short breaths. The last stop was approaching and a sickening sensation flooded his entire body. He wanted to pull the emergency door open and leap out. He wanted away, but he didn’t know why.
Then the bus came to a stop. It wasn’t the normal stop. The horses racing in Christopher’s mind slowed to a trot. He wanted to rise from his seat, but was locked in place. The door opened. All fear left his body. What was he afraid of in the first place? Joel was right; there wasn’t anything wrong with the old man.
Christopher got up and started the long walk to the front of the bus, watching his feet as he went. His red and white checkered Vans flashed before him with each step he made on the black safety mat that stretched to the front of the bus. Benches rippled past and then sandals; black sandals with white stockings leading up to the knee.
He jerked to a stop as he almost collided with a little girl. A little girl he would have liked to say he had never seen before, but he had. It was the girl in the mirror. She was wearing a red gingham dress. Her hair was in little pigtails with red ribbons holding them in place. Despite the obvious care given to the girls clothing, something was amiss. Strands of hair had been pulled out from the neat ribbons and dark brown stains splotched the girls dress.
The girl’s skin was a sickly white and her eyes . . . Nothing but deep pits. Deep hollow pits staring into nothing. Yet despite not having any eyes the little girl seemed to be looking at Christopher.
He took a step back, then two, then three. He found himself fumbling for a place to hide. As he drew farther back, he found the eyeless girl wasn’t the only one who had climbed aboard. Two other boys were walking behind her. Christopher couldn’t tell there was anything wrong with them until the girl sat down.
The boy in front had slicked back black hair and reminded Christopher of a smaller version of “The Fonz”. He also reminded Christopher of someone else, but he couldn’t figure out who. It didn’t matter though, for this was the first time he had ever seen someone missing a part of their head. The right side of the boy’s head was nothing but a grey crater, like someone took a huge ice cream scoop to the top of his head.
One eye blinked at him, and then with a laugh that sounded like the crunching of dried leaves, the boy flipped one of the girls’ pigtails in the air. Christopher saw the irritation on the girls face, but she did nothing. The other boy laughed as well. Nothing immediately seemed wrong with him, other than the large crimson stain which covered the front of his collared white shirt.
When the disfigured children sat down, the bus lurched forward, knocking Christopher into the back seat. He quickly crawled to one side and covered his eyes.
It wasn’t long before the bus was making another stop. Christopher hesitantly peeked around the corner of the seat. The boy with half a face was looking back at him. He ducked behind the seat, but he heard more kids getting on the bus as the muffled conversations grew louder.
Slick, sick sounds echoed through the hollow bus. The voices of children, unnatural voices; some were wet and slippery, as if they were talking under water. Others were dry and hoarse, whispering and chattering.
Several more stops were made. Each time Christopher heard the whine of breaks and the release of air. He heard more feet shuffle on board and springs condense as lifeless bodies sat down.
As the bus filled up, the noise grew louder and the death-bitten children grew rowdier. Paper airplanes crashed and spit balls flew. As Christopher hid his head in fear, curiosity got the better of him. He peeked from his shelter to see a bus load of children laughing, giggling and making merriment. Each one had broken features.
He turned and saw a child sitting opposite him. Like Christopher, the child sat quietly, with his hands between his legs. He looked to be several years younger than Christopher and looked as frightened as Christopher felt.
Something like courage swelled within. Christopher was the youngest in his family so he never knew what it felt like to be a big brother, but seeing that scared child next to him, Christopher realized he needed to be strong.
“It’s going to be okay,” Christopher announced.
The boy, who had been leaning his head on his own shoulder turned to face Christopher. One side of the boys’ neck appeared longer than normal and was ringed with red welts that went all the way around the neck. His lips were blue and crusted with white flecks. “Please don’t let him hurt me anymore,” the child squeaked.
Christopher noticed that the child was shivering and then heard a dripping noise. Urine seeped from the boy’s pants onto the seat. It dripped to the floor in a steady rhythm, pooling below.
Uncomfortable feelings washed through Christopher. He vaguely remembered returning home having wet himself and having to hide his clothing to save himself from embarrassment. The child next to him might be dead, but a sudden surge of emotion coursed through him. Somehow, he knew how the child felt.
Then the bus came to a stop and the feeling got worse.
It wasn’t Christopher’s normal stop, at least not to go home. It was more of a detour. The bus was parked in a field, surrounded by eucalyptus trees and a set of train tracks that hadn’t seen a train on them in several years. As the bus squealed to a stop, a plume of dust formed up all around, momentarily clouding the windows.
As Christopher looked forward he saw his glance returned as the bus driver watched him from the long rear view mirror in front. A malicious smile melted onto the old man’s face. He turned in his seat and spun around.
Christopher watched as the old man approached. He tried to swallow this image down and hide it along with the others, but it wouldn’t waver. The driver seemed oblivious to the other occupants on the bus. His focus was on Christopher and Christopher alone.
Disgusting, filthy feelings washed over Christopher as the man approached. Then something happened. One minute the vile man came towards him, the next he was stumbling to the ground. Christopher heard the man scream in pain as he struck the rubber mat the covered the aisle.
He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw Craterhead stick his foot out right before the bus driver fell. Christopher hoped the old man wouldn’t get back up, but hope quickly subsided as the man rose to his feet. The bus driver was screaming when he rose and Christopher noticed small multi-colored dots all over the mans’ shriveled hands.
Christopher was frozen in place as he watched the bus driver pluck the dots from his hand one by one, each one causing a grimace of pain. Christopher realized they were thumb tacks. Someone had dumped thumb tacks right where the bus driver had tripped. Christopher didn’t seen who did it, but he noticed the little pigged tail girl smiling with devilish mirth.
“Alright, who did that?” The bus driver yelled as he squinted looking around.
Christopher noticed that the bus drivers’ glasses had fallen off and was having a difficult time seeing anything. Although with the way his head was swiveling from side to side, it was clear that he still didn’t see all of the other passengers. This was odd since Christopher was sure the bus driver had stopped to let them all on.
“Where are you? You hiding underneath the seat, you little bastard!” Before the driver had a chance to duck and look underneath the seat, something struck him on the cheek. It caused a welt form and then the bright red mark started to trickle blood.
“What the hell was that! Was that a spitball or something! Felt more like a damn BB gun. Who the hell is in here! Whoever it is, you are going to pay!” The words barely slipped through the bus drivers’ mouth when another spitball flew through the air. It struck the old man in his open mouth causing him to cough and choke. The bus driver spit out a wad of blood and growled.
Christopher was beyond frightened. The gaggle of undead children only seemed to be pissing the bus driver off and he knew very well that he would be the recipient of the aftermath. The thought didn’t keep him from watching as the bus driver raged on. That’s when Christopher noticed all the kids with straws in their mouth. A flurry of spitballs flew through the air; each one striking the driver with much more force than a simple wad of chewed up paper could.
The man started to flail around as little spots of flesh tore open on the bus driver’s face, hands, arms, and crimson spots formed on his blue collared shirt. It looked as if he was trying to swing at his attackers, but he clearly couldn’t see anything.
As the flurry of spitballs ceased, paper airplanes continued the assault. The looked like simple, harmless, paper airplanes, but as each one found their mark, they proved to be not so simple after all. They gouged and stuck, each one causing more damage than the first. Christopher was shocked at just how much the damage the man took. It wasn’t until one of the flying daggers took him in the eye that he finally went down.
The whole time Christopher was worried about what the bus driver was going to do to him. Now that the man was down, a new fear struck him. He was the only other person on the bus alive. Would these haunted souls now turn their bloodlust towards him?
Christopher had nothing to fear. Like Christopher they were all victims of the unspeakable. Some like The Fonz and Pigtails were victims of the same parasite as Christopher. The others had their own demons, but they all sought revenge. Each and every one of them frozen in time from when their innocence was stolen. Each one reflecting the scars that took their lives.
Some turned and smiled at Christopher as they walked on and over the fallen body of the bus driver. The one eyed boy even gave him a wink. With the deed done, they filed off of the bus and disappeared. The only two remaining were Christopher and the small boy seated next to him. The child’s head was no longer tilted to one side and the blueness of his lips had faded.
Something about the child looked familiar. His wavy dish water blond hair reminded him of his own when he let it grow out and the boy’s green eyes were the same. There was definitely a likeness. The kid could easily pass as a cousin, or even a brother.
Christopher extended a hand to the young boy and he clasped it into his own. They walked hand in hand as they made their way over the sprawled body on the floor of the bus. The child’s hand suddenly clenched tighter to Christopher’s and he let out a scream. Christopher looked down and saw the bus drivers’ meaty paw grasping the little boy’s ankle like a drowning man trying to grab onto a raft.
The past washed over Christopher and fear was carried away in the current. The evil man was never going to hurt him again. He lifted his leg high and swung it with all his might. The red and white checkered shoe crashed into the ugly mans’ face, crunching teeth, bone and cartilage.
Rage bloomed and Christopher kicked him again. Then again. He kicked the dying man so many times that he grew tired, out of breath, and his foot ached. So he switched feet.
By the time Christopher exited the bus he was exhausted, but he never felt more alive. Like the other passengers, the small child that had been beside him had disappeared. Alone Christopher stood, but we wasn’t afraid. As he set off, he knew this would be the last time he would be walking home from that bus stop.
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