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We were at 90 and the bus was begi
"Thomas's face, all those burns on him—it was our fault, we just—Jesus, we just wanted to kill Grendel so much none of us even thought about what was in the jars—and Thomas, he can't pull himself off that table and run for the sink because his other arm and his chest are still strapped down"—
—93…94—
—"Christopher, please, you have to slow down, if you don't you're"—
—"so I pull down this piece of tarp that's covering a crate of medical supplies and throw it on top of him and then all three of us are on top of him and patting down the tarp and there's smoke and the smell of burning flesh"—
—"going to kill us, you're going to ram this thing into the side of a truck or"—
—95…96—
—"and Thomas is bucking and shaking and screaming again and… and"—
—"make this fucking bus shake apart or lose control of the wheel and flip us about a thousand times"—
—97—
—"and it's all so… so u
—98—
—"I'm begging you, Christopher, I'm—LOOK AT ME, WILL YOU? I'm BEGGING you to please"—
—"No need for any of it, for things like Grendel to be walking around all safe and sound and sleeping so peacefully like some baby with a fresh soul"—
—99—
—the bus was shaking like some giant iron lizard having a seizure the wheel was rattling right off the column—
—"SLOW DOWN!"—
—"while there are kids like Thomas who have to apologize to monsters like it was them who'd done the wrong"—
—I reached over and yanked the pistol from him and fired a shot into the roof, then one into the floor between my legs, then turned it on him—"SLOW DOWN RIGHT NOW OR I'LL SHOOT YOU AND"—and the sudden absurdity of what I was about to say hit me; if I shot him, he'd let go of the wheel, the bus would spin, the trailer would jackknife, we'd probably do about a dozen somersaults across all three lanes on this side, and there wouldn't be enough left of either of us to identify once the gas tank and ammonium-nitrate went up.
This wasn't a threat I was making; it was the punchline to the dumbest fucking joke never told.
I looked at the speedometer—
—100—
—and then Christopher looked at me, at the hole in the roof, the one in the floor, and the gun in my hand, and said: "What'd you do that for?"—
—except the way that he said it, all softly and childlike and i
—I started laughing.
And couldn't stop.
No matter how much I tried, I could not stop with the yuks and the giggles and the hardee-dee-har-har-hars; couldn't get control of the chuckles and the hoots; I doubled-up with the snickers and snorts, then tripled-up with the cackles, and by the time the chortles and guffaws came into it, I think I was actually begi
I don't know how long it took before the storm fizzled out, but when it was done I found myself half on the floor, half in my seat, kneeling face-first like a drunk heaving into a toilet, and everything inside my body was throbbing with pain.
Then this voice started to penetrate the thick haze in my skull, it was saying something about finished and done and holes and—
—I looked up at Christopher; he was sitting half-turned in his seat, looking down at me, arms crossed over the steering wheel, fingers drumming away. The bus wasn't shaking to pieces any longer. There wasn't going to be any spectacular Götterdammerung-ing on this road this morning—at least, not by us. When had we stopped moving, anyway? I looked around—insomuch as my eyes could focus—and saw that we'd pulled over into the emergency lane. Morning traffic was getting slightly heavier now. No one looked at us.
I wiped my eyes and gri
"Are you finished?" he asked.
"Why'd… why'd you… why'd you stop?" I pulled myself back into my seat, leaning my head back and holding my chest, gasping for air.
He waited until I was settled before answering. "Oh, all kinds of reasons—it felt like this goddamn thing was about to crack apart… I think I hit a rabbit… the CD ended and it was time to change the tunes… but I suppose the biggest reason was that… well, gosh, my curiosity just got the best of me and I had to find out which part of the story you found SO FUCKING FUNNY!"
His first punch broke my nose; his second one cracked a rib; he was getting ready to deliver a third when I pulled back my legs and kicked out squarely at the center of his chest, slamming him back against his door, then threw open my own door and stumbled out, losing my balance and falling back-first against the bus, and then Christopher came over my seat and grabbed at my shirt collar but I pulled away, hearing the material rip, and staggered toward the far end, and the next punch came so fast and hard that I was spun back against the bus before I had a chance to block his blow, and as I tried righting myself into a defensive position the second punch landed twice as hard as the last one, right in my stomach, and I doubled over, and the next punch crashed against the side of my mouth, bloodying it instantly and snapping me straight up; I tried to cover but the blows kept landing deep into my stomach and against the side of my head, then again to my head, again to my stomach and I was gasping because now the pain and the bleeding were getting very hard, blood streaming down from my mouth to my shirt and what saved me from being pummeled into unconsciousness right then and there was that I threw the most half-assed doofus-janitor hook and it landed but didn't seem to do any good and now here came a punch toward my eyes and I managed to lower my head in time for the blow to land on the top of my head and I thought I heard a couple of Christopher's knuckles pop ("You and that hard head of yours," Tanya always said) and that was good, that was great, but not great enough to stop his punches from triphammering into my stomach again.
I could feel myself starting to black out, so I shook myself and lunged forward, punching Christopher in the neck and grabbing the back of his head so I could yank it forward and punch his eyes but it was slippery going because his eyes were wet but whether it was from tears or blood I couldn't tell and didn't care, by that time Christopher had regained his balance and was slamming me back against the bus as he launched into another attack.