Darkroom (21 page)

Delilah looked up at him, squinting one eye against the sun. ‘Can I ask you something, Mr Rook? When you look at us, when you look at Special Class II, do you think we're really dumb?'

Jim smiled and shook his head. ‘The only dumb people I know are the people who refuse to learn English, because they think they're too cool, or they know enough words already.'

‘I saw a new word today. Well, I'm not too sure if it is a word, or just somebody's name.'

‘Oh yes, what was it?' He was only half paying attention, because he could see Karen walking diagonally between the gravestones so that she would meet up with him.

‘Nemesis. It was scratched on the back of the seat in front of me, on the bus.'

‘It means somebody who relentlessly seeks revenge. But it is a name, too, in a way. It comes from Nemesis, the Greek goddess of retribution.' He paused, and looked at her. ‘Funny thing to scratch on a bus seat.'

‘It was carved real deep. It must have taken hours.'

Karen came up to join him. ‘That was a very sad funeral.'

‘Yes, it was.'

‘Why don't I give you a ride back to college?' she suggested. ‘You don't have to go on the bus, do you?'

‘No … I guess the Wild Bunch will be OK without me. They all seem pretty subdued after that.'

He stood by the bus door, counting all of Special Class II as they climbed aboard. Sue-Marie was the last. She was wearing a very short black dress and grape-jelly-colored lipstick.

‘Are you going to sit next to me, sir?'

‘Actually, Sue-Marie, I've accepted a lift from Ms Goudemark. We have some curriculum problems to discuss.'

Sue-Marie gave him a sultry look that could have burned holes through paper. ‘Curriculum problems? Pity.'

It was all that Jim and Karen could do to stop themselves from laughing out loud. Jim had to press his hand over his mouth as Sue-Marie climbed the steps, wiggling her bottom, and the doors closed behind her with a sharp pneumatic hiss.

‘She really has the hots for you,' said Karen, as they walked across to her pale-blue Mustang.

‘If only I were ten years younger.'

‘If you were ten years younger she wouldn't lust after you.'

Jim climbed into the passenger seat. ‘You're not jealous, are you?'

‘Jealous?
Moi?
'

She inserted the key into the ignition, and she was just about to start the engine when Jim saw something moving on the opposite side of the parking lot. He laid his hand on top of hers and said, ‘Wait.'

‘What?' she asked him. ‘Did you forget something?'

‘No.
Look!
Can you see that? Over there, just past those bushes!'

Karen frowned in the direction that Jim was pointing. ‘I can't see anything. What is it?'

Jim felt as if all the blood was draining out of his face. Lurching across the parking lot, less than a hundred yards away from them, was the camera creature – Robert H. Vane. In broad daylight he looked just as terrifying as he had in the dark, his hunched-up body draped in black, his legs moving in that jerky, crippled, spider-like gait, as if he was right on the verge of toppling over. In spite of his awkwardness, though, he was moving disconcertingly fast, and he was heading directly toward the bus.

‘W
hat's the matter?' asked Karen. ‘Jim, what's wrong?'

‘Can't you see that? Look!' Jim struggled with his seatbelt and heaved himself out of the car.

‘Jim, what is it?'

‘Call nine-one-one!' Jim shouted at her. ‘Fire department! Now!'

He started to run toward the bus, shouting hoarsely and waving his arms. The camera creature took no notice of him, but continued to clatter across the tarmac. He looked far bigger than he had before, and taller, with his humped black body and his stilt-like mahogany legs.

‘Get out of the bus!' he screamed. ‘Everybody get out of the bus!'

The bus driver had already started the engine and released the brakes. He was slowly inching out of his parking space, his hand flat on the steering wheel.

‘Stop!
Stop!
Open the door! Everybody get out of the bus!'

He could see the faces of Special Class II staring at him out of the windows. Randy, and Delilah, and Edward, and Sally Broxman, twisting her hair. He felt as if he were running through treacle, and that his voice was slowed-down and blurred.

‘Sttoooopppp! Everrryboooddy ggettt outtttt offff the bussssss …'

The camera creature suddenly stopped, his legs unsteadily jabbing for balance. Two arms emerged from underneath the black cloth, throwing it right back over his humped-up shoulders. It was then that Jim glimpsed for a split second what Robert H. Vane had become. A bone-white skull, almost square, with only a few strands of greasy, iron-gray hair. A face dominated by a huge dark lens, like a single eye. He raised one hand, except that it wasn't a hand, it was a blackened metal trough. It was impossible to tell where the man ended and the camera began; they were biologically intermingled.

Jim sprinted toward him, panting with effort, determined to tackle him and bring him down. But the camera creature was too quick for him. Jim still had more than twenty yards to cover when there was an ear-splitting
crack
and the entire world was bleached into nothingness – bus, sky, yucca trees, parking lot – followed by a wave of heat that sent Jim staggering backward. One foot got tangled up with the other, and he fell heavily on to the ground, knocking his head and grazing his hand.

When he managed to look up, he saw that the bus was on fire, blazing fiercely from front to back. The camera creature took a few three-legged steps back, then dropped the cloth to cover his head and body, and began to stalk quickly away. Jim had to let him go: the bus was a mass of rippling orange flames and he could hear screaming and shouting as Special Class II tried to escape.

He ran up to the front of the bus, one arm raised to protect his face. Behind the door he could see Ruby struggling to get out, her face contorted with panic. He tried to get closer, but the heat was roasting. Along the side of the bus, he could see Randy and Roosevelt beating at the windows with their fists, trying to break the glass.

He turned around. Several people were running toward him. ‘Hammer!' he shouted. ‘Tire iron! Anything! We have to get them out!'

He stripped off his coat and bundled it around his left arm, covering his hand. He edged toward the door, keeping his right hand lifted to shield his face. The sleeve of his coat began to smolder, but the heat was just about bearable. Edging forward just a little more, he reached out and grabbed the emergency door handle, and yanked it down.

The door juddered open, and Ruby tumbled out on to the tarmac, her hair smoking. Jim dragged her away from the bus, and Sara Miller's mother came up and put her jacket around her. Ruby was followed by Brenda, Vanilla and Freddy, all of them gasping from smoke and heat. Then – hacking and gagging even more wildly – came Roosevelt and George.

Jim waited a few moments longer, to see if anybody else would make it out, but that seemed to be all. ‘Sonny!' he shouted. ‘Sue-Marie!'

There was no answer. He tried to edge a little nearer, so that he could jump up on to the bus. But the front tire, which had been furiously smoldering up until now, suddenly burst into flame, and gouts of fiery rubber began to shower across the steps, like lava.

‘Jim!' shouted Dr Ehrlichman. ‘Jim, you get back here! That bus is going to explode!'

Jim ignored him. He turned to one of the funeral directors and said, ‘Give me your coat!'

‘What?'

‘Your coat! Give me your coat!'

The funeral director pulled off his coat and reluctantly handed it over. Jim immediately draped it over his head. He crouched down, took a deep breath, and then vaulted on to the steps.

Inside, the bus was full of boiling black smoke, and he could see only inches in front of him. The driver was tilted over the wheel, his face sweaty and maroon. Jim heaved him out of his seat and rolled him down the steps. Then he groped his way down the aisle. Almost at once he found Randy, hunched on the floor, wheezing for breath. He dragged him along to the doorway, grunting with effort, and pushed him down the steps, too. He didn't have time to be ceremonious about it, or to worry about the flames from the blazing tire.

Coughing, breathless, he went back again, and this time he collided with Sonny, Sue-Marie and Edward, all holding hands.

‘This way!' he said hoarsely, and led them toward the door. ‘Just get the hell out!'

They stumbled down the steps. Jim, his eyes watering, peered toward the back of the bus. There must be two or three more students, at least. He inched his way back down the aisle, his hand held over his face. The heat was so intense at this end of the bus that he felt as if he were walking through a blast furnace. He could smell the hairs inside his nostrils burning, and the soles of his best black shoes were melting, so that every step was sticky.

Five rows from the back he found Delilah lying in her seat, semi-conscious. He leaned across and shook her. ‘Delilah! Delilah! Wake up! You have to get out of here!'

He shook her again, violently, and this time she opened her eyes, blinked up at him, and coughed. On the back of the seat in front of her was the word
NEMESIS
, carved deep.

‘Delilah! You have to get out!'

He managed to pull her out of her seat. ‘What?' she mumbled. ‘What's happening?'

‘That way,' he said, pointing through the smoke toward the front of the bus.

At that moment there were two sharp explosions, one after the other, as the rear windows smashed. Oxygen rushed hungrily into the bus, and the last three rows burst into raging orange flame. The vinyl seat covers peeled away like dragon skin, and the foam upholstery dripped in monstrous blazing blobs. Even the composition floor started to burn.

Jim thought: that's it, nobody left alive. I have to get out of here.

Just as he was about to turn back, however, he saw shadowy movement amongst the flames. He peered through his wide-apart fingers. Nobody could have survived a holocaust like this. It wasn't possible.

But then two figures emerged from the fire, and they were both on fire, too. Pinky and David, trudging toward him as slowly as if they were climbing a mountain. Pinky's hair was alight, and her dress crawled with flame. Her face was blackened and cracked like barbecued pork, and her lips were livid scarlet. Both of her arms were raised in unbearable pain, in the drumming-monkey gesture that people adopt when they are burning alive.

David was close up behind her, his arms raised monkey-fashion, too. He kept nudging Pinky forward because both of his eyeballs had burst and his eye-sockets were nothing but glutinous holes. He had no hair on his scalp, only shiny black scales, like a turtle.

Pinky stopped. Jim thought she might be staring at him, but he couldn't tell if she could see him or not. David stopped behind her, and the both of them stood in the aisle for what seemed like a minute, burning. Black fatty smoke rose from the tops of their heads, as if they were human candles.

Pinky's lips moved, and she said something. It sounded like
please
, but it could have been anything. Jim raised his hand toward her, unable to touch her, but desperate to show her that he cared for her. Without another word she collapsed on to the floor, and David collapsed on top of her. The fire from the composition flooring engulfed them both.

Jim groped his way toward the front of the bus. He reached the top of the steps, hesitated for a moment, and then hurled himself sideways out of the door, right through the flames from the burning tire. He hit the ground and rolled over and over.

Somebody immediately grabbed his left arm, and just as quickly, somebody else grabbed his right. Whoever they were, they were very strong, because they dragged him away at a fast trot, his heels bouncing on the tarmac. They dragged him all the way to the grass bank at the side of the parking lot, and then they slowed up, and gently laid him down.

He looked up and blinked. His eyes were still watering and the sun was shining brightly so that all he could see of his rescuers was black silhouettes.

‘Are you OK, sir?' one of them asked him.

He shielded his eyes with his hand and saw that it was a young black firefighter, in a helmet and rubbers.

‘Yes,' he coughed. ‘Thanks.' He coughed again, and again, and then he started coughing so much that he had to sit up.

As he did so, he saw the bus, burning like a Norse funeral ship, on its way to Valhalla.

‘Pinky,' he croaked. ‘David. They didn't stand a chance.'

‘You did everything you could, sir, believe me.'

The bus exploded with a devastating roar. A huge ball of orange fire rolled up into the morning sky, followed by another ball of black smoke. Fragments of paneling and window frames and metal tubing were blown high up into the air, and then began to clatter down again, like tuneless bells. A blazing wheel dropped on to the tarmac only thirty feet away, and bounced, and then went rolling downhill with a firefighter running after it.

Karen pushed her way through the crowd and knelt down beside him.

‘Jim! Jim! Are you OK?'

He coughed and nodded and coughed. ‘Smoke,' he said, pointing to his chest.

She put her arms around him and held him close. ‘You're crazy,' she said. ‘You could have been killed.'

He couldn't answer. His throat was raw and he couldn't catch his breath. All he could think about was Pinky and David slowly walking toward him, both burning. He knew that he would see them now for the rest of his life.

That, and the word nemesis.

Lieutenant Harris came into the recovery room and, without being invited, pulled up a chair. He was wearing a particularly garish necktie, with purple lightning flashes on it. He took out his handkerchief and mopped the sweat from his upper lip.