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But…he couldn’t help feeling that this situation was different. For one thing, this was Mexico-a whole different universe. For another, he and the gorgeous Canadian were the only gringos on the bus. Initially they had been in separate seats, but jolly Mexican ladies had insisted they sit together, playing matchmaker for the clueless estudiantes. Embarrassed, he had been all too ready to decline-no, no, gracias-but to his amazement the girl came over and sat by him. And from that moment on, he was in love.
Yet…he didn’t want everything to depend on a girl. Not again. Not here. As he walked, he tried to fully immerse himself in the moment, in the extraordinary fact that he was alive, here, now, on this beautiful Godforsaken highway somewhere in Mexico. The gravel crunching under his feet, the rolling horizon like a black cardboard cutout under dimly luminous clouds, the tiny flecks of rain in the breeze-it was all marvelous.
Below the highway embankment he could see an army of tall, pale figures with arms upraised-saguaro cacti. For a second he had a wild impulse to run down there: a hike out into the desert would put things in their true perspective. But he knew he wouldn’t really do it.
The Pemex station came into view, an island of sickly fluorescent light. It looked as desolate as a base on the Moon. Now he could see the trouble: there was another bus down there, a sleek white charter bus, straddling both lanes of the road. It didn’t look damaged, but there must have been an accident of some kind because a lot of people were laying on the ground, with a bunch of nurses giving them CPR. Not nurses-nuns. A busload of nuns. Other people were ru
Was he crazy or were some of the nuns chasing them?
The bus driver and his party ran to offer assistance, other men joining them along the way until the group snowballed to twenty or thirty people. They passed at least as many ru
Having fallen behind the driver, the young man was about halfway down the hill when he realized he was walking into something very wrong-and he stopped.
An olive-drab truck full of soldiers pulled into the gas station first. Before it could even begin unloading, a group of people-including several nuns-rushed the truck’s bed and leaped in among the surprised troops. The canvas cover bounced cartoonishly from the violence within. A police Bronco stormed onto the scene and four smartly uniformed federal officers charged out, shouting orders. Nuns rushed them and they disappeared from view. Was it the fluorescent light, or did those nuns’ faces look weirdly blue?
At the same time, the bus driver’s posse was nearing the outer realm of glare from the gas station. The men’s elongated black shadows stretched behind them as though reluctant to get any closer, but the determined hombres did not waver. From their vantage it was likely they could not properly see what was happening to the police and soldiers. Weirdly manic female silhouettes rushed to meet them, and in a second the two groups collided.
It was a massacre: the thirty volunteers suddenly found themselves senselessly, viciously assaulted. Tackled in flying leaps, half of them were pi
Frozen in place, the young man watched all this with increasing disbelief, unsure of how to react, but at the sound of gunfire he realized he was in over his head. The bus driver obviously had the same thought: As the rest of his party got caught up in the fighting, he had an abrupt change of heart and ran for his life. It was a close thing. He was a heavy smoker, and not young either, but he could move when he had to.
“Come on, man, come on!” shouted the American. It had occurred to him that he wasn’t going anywhere without that bus driver.
The driver was faltering, wheezing badly. He had already run quite a distance, and now the ru
As they retreated alongside the line of traffic, they passed the bizarre spectacle of what appeared to be people making out in some of the cars: mismatched couples locked in furious sexual combat…though the men were clearly not the aggressors. In fact the women seemed to be sucking the very life from their reluctant male prey. Like spiders, the American thought wildly. Black widow spiders.
A man’s flailing leg kicked through a windshield, spraying them with glass as they hurried by. A car pulled out of line and drove down the steep embankment, plowing into the ditch at the bottom. Truck horns brayed, and they could hear small children screaming. Over it all was a shrill, rising din-the hyena laughter of the insane.
Now the young man was tiring. Almost there…almost there. They had crested the hill, and he could see the bus-Tres Estrellas de Oro-but all around them things were getting sketchier by the second. People were bursting from cars and fleeing in all directions with blue-faced monstrosities hot on their heels. Any second one of those things would notice them and it would all be over. The number of scary maniacs was doubling as the victims revived and joined their ranks-very soon there wouldn’t be anyone sane left. From the direction of the gas station, they could hear a demonic host approaching. It was hopeless.
But nothing noticed them-or perhaps they were beneath notice, this shambling, silent pair, so ploddingly steadfast amid the general panic-because suddenly they were there, miraculously at the bus, on the bus, clambering up the steps and slamming the door behind them.
It was empty.
“¡Lupe! ¡Lupita!” the driver called, searching frantically, but the bus was completely deserted. It was also a ransacked mess, the aisle littered with women’s shoes and spilled luggage, as well as teeth and tufts of ripped hair. And blood-blood everywhere-flung in drabs and spatters and hectic smears, as by the hand of a mad impressionist. It was just as well that the two men couldn’t see much of this in the dark. The only sound was a high-pitched whine coming from the radio.
Bad things had happened here, as everywhere else, but for now the bus was empty; it was dark; it was safe. It was life. For a brief moment, the terror outside was muffled and remote. The two exhausted men fell into seats, crying and gasping for breath. “Se viene abajo…se viene abajo,” the driver sobbed.
“What the fuck is this, man?” the younger man babbled. “What the fuck is going on out there? What’s happening to everyone?”
“La ley ya no está en vigor…”
“It must be some kind of chemical weapon! A gas attack or some kind of mind control thing…but then why don’t we have it? It doesn’t make any sense!”
“Sea lo que sea, no lo puedo creer.”
They continued like this for a few minutes, purging the raw adrenaline from their systems. Catching his breath a bit, the driver reached into the overhead rack and turned off the radio. He then pulled down two plastic bottles of milky liquid. Handing one to the American, he said, “Pulque,” and took a deep drink.
“Don’t you understand? I’m fucking losing it, man! I’m losing it!”
“A otro perro con ese hueso.”
“I don’t understand a word you’re saying! I don’t understand anything! No entiendo-you get it?”