Redaction: The Meltdown Part II (2 page)

For all our sakes.

“I am, Missus S.” He leaned against the dash and drummed on his leg. “I am.”

She cleared her throat and blinked rapidly to clear away the tears. Stupid smoke must be getting in her eyes.

“Breaker. Breaker. Two. Eight. This is seven-niner. Come back.”

Audra rolled her eyes at the gibberish crackling through the child’s walkie-talkie strapped to the dashboard in an old blue jean’s pocket. Mrs. Rodriquez had certainly thrown herself into bus driving with enthusiasm. Her passengers quieted and expectation hummed in the air. After seven hours of near silence someone outside their bus spoke, too bad it wasn’t a radio broadcast with an update.

“Can I answer, Missus S?” Oscar jumped to his feet. Steadying himself, he clutched the bar near her head, snagging a lock of her hair in the process.

Heat burned along her scalp at the pull. Leaning toward his hand, she eased the burn a little bit. “Sure.”

Faye snorted and plopped down on the seat behind Audra. “An adult should answer it. That toy is the only thing keeping us together.”

She
was the only thing keeping them together. For some strange reason, people listened to her, followed her. Good Lord, when would it end?

Duct tape protested when Oscar pulled the walkie free. A corner of the empty pocket folded over. He squeezed the black button on the side and held the toy against his mouth. “This is bus twenty-eight, er, I mean two-eight coming back to you seven-niner.”

“Good morning two-eight,” Mrs. Rodriquez chirped.

Audra twisted her hands on the wheel. How could someone be so happy so early in the morning and without coffee, especially when they’d been up all night driving?

“We’re running low on gasoline.”

Audra bit her lip. The happy pronouncement was battery acid in a wound. No gas. No go. No soldiers. No safety. No rest. She eyed her own gas gauge. The red needle flirted with the bar just a hair above empty. The tank had been full since the schools were prepping to return to action when the Redaction had returned. She eyed the roadsign, mentally tallied the distance between them and the targeted campus. “How low are you? We’ve got twelve miles to go.”

“I’m near to coasting.” The chirp dulled in her voice. “And we have no idea how long the last twelve miles will take.”

Three other voices echoed Mrs. Rodriquez’s concerns. That made every driver in the convoy. Audra tapped her brakes as the smoke thickened.

“We can’t stop here!” Lurching to her feet, Faye swayed while standing on the yellow safety line. “I hear rats.”

Gray clouds pressed against the windshield and the sound of squeaks penetrated the bus. Rats. Audra’s toes curled in her cowboy boots. The flames herded them. She leaned forward until the steering wheel cut into her belly.

“Do you see the fire?”

Bending, Faye braced one hand on the dash. Her head turned from side to side. “It’s everywhere.”

Which meant they couldn’t stop or even slow down.

Oscar clicked the on/off button, punctuating the rat serenade with static. “What do you want me to say, Missus S?”

“Ask if anyone sees flames.” Her eyes strained to detect the red tongues of fire high above the sloping concrete walls. Rats streamed down the pink surface but didn’t swarm in a panic. Still, if they pulled off too soon, they’d be overrun and eaten by the fleeing vermin. Cold snaked down her spine. She’d seen it before.
Please God, don’t let me ever see it again
.

“Missus S wants to know if anyone can see where the fire is.”

“In the smoke breaks, I can see some intermittent meatball in marinara sauce,” Mrs. Rodriquez answered.

Oscar giggled.

Audra swallowed the bile in her throat. Whoever referred to the rat roadkill as food should be shot. Spaghetti and meatballs had been her favorite dish until they’d coined the reference. She doubted she’d want to eat it ever again. And her problem still wasn’t solved. They needed to know where the fire was.

“I think I see flames in my rearview mirror.” Jacqueline Silvestre’s voice drifted through the walkie. “Would someone please verify?”

Audra inhaled a slow breath. Despite everything they’d been through, her mother wouldn’t simply make a statement lest she offend a stranger. Not that she minced words with her daughter. Oh, no, Audra was issued commands every time they met or spoke. She should have stopped listening to her mother years ago. Heck, even ten hours ago would have been smart. Then she wouldn’t be in charge of this group. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel and eased into the center lane. But as soon as she found the soldiers all that would be in the past.

“Good call, Jackie O,” Mrs. Rodriquez confirmed. “We’ve passed the fires.”

Audra smiled at the nickname. No one would have dared abbreviate Jacqueline Silvestre’s name back in Washington D.C. or compared her to a Democratic First Lady. The Silvestre lineage dated to the Founding Fathers and so did the family fortune. They bled Republican.
Welcome to the new world, Mother.

“I think we should go another mile up to be safe, then exit,” Mrs. Rodriquez sang. “What say you, Princess A?”

Oscar grinned showing teeth he’d yet to grow into. “That’s you.”

“I know.” Audra winked at him and scanned the horizon. Unlike from some people, the title was practically an endearment when the older lady said it. Besides, the smoke did seem thinner.

“Exit?” Faye flapped her scrawny arms. “Why exit? We have all the fuel we need in the last bus. We can stop right here on the freeway. No need to get off.”

Audra ignored her. Advice was so easy to give when no one asked for it. Especially when everyone already knew it.

“What should I tell her?”

She slapped on the turn signal and made her way to the right hand lane. “Tell her we’re going to fill up.”

The buses followed her lead and swerved.

She shifted in her seat. Maybe she could empty her bladder and stretch a bit. Hopefully it wouldn’t take too long to refill from the barrels on her mother’s bus—the one carrying the last of their food and many of their belongings.

Plus a few corpses.

The corpses. She sucked on her bottom lip. What should she do with them? Leaving them on the side of the road seemed so callous, especially when rats prowled for a meal. But carrying them further was out of the question—they could be contagious. The scent of fecal matter drifted by. Her gut threatened to exit her mouth. And there was the matter of the slops pot. The five-gallon bucket they used as a potty needed to be emptied.

“Miz R, we’re pulling over,” Oscar shouted into the walkie.

The rest of her passengers scuttled to their seats. Three of them raised their hands.

She shook her head. Once a teacher… “Yes, Haley?”

An eight-year-old in a red jumper stood up, crossed legs and wedged a hand against her private parts. “Can we get out, Miss Silvestre? I have to pee.”

“Yes.” Ignoring the shoulder, she guided the bus up the ramp. They needed facilities, hopefully the kind with running water. “Grab your buddy and stay close to the parent assigned to watch you.”
If they are still alive.
“I don’t want anyone getting lost, you hear?”

Groans interspersed the ‘yes, Missus S’.

“Pit stop sounds delightful, Princess A,” Mrs. Rodriquez twittered through the walkie. “Mr. Know-It-All says we could try for the Burgers in a Basket. He says they were opened for a few days and will have laid in a supply of cooking oil we can use to conserve our biodiesel supply.”

Cooking oil for biodiesel? That didn’t sound right. Audra braked at the top of the ramp. But then what did she know? She taught English not science. “Okay, I’ll keep an eye out.”

Cars jammed the intersection. Flies swarmed some—a sign that their occupants slowly rotted inside. The stench of death clung to the pervading smoke drifts. She glanced right then left. Two gas stations stood across the freeway. Would one of them have batteries to power their radio? Surely, there had to be news somewhere.

“I see one, Missus S.” Isaac jumped on the floor. “I see one.”

She followed the direction of his pointing. On the south side, along with a string of stores, sat a gas station and a Burgers in the Basket. Wood boarded up the windows of the gas station and only the eight remained of the eighteen-ninety-five price tag for a gallon of regular gas on the milky sign. Gang tags stained the stucco walls in bloody hues. At the restaurant, faded posters proclaimed the arrival of toys for the new movie Hatshepsut.

Grand reopening signs hung from the eaves of the grocery store and fluttered in the breeze. Empty carts scattered across the rutted parking lot. Here and there, tall weeds sprouted above closely cropped greenery. A narrow strip of asphalt had been cleared through the metal bottleneck, funneling them to the restaurant. The skin on her neck prickled.
Please don’t let this be a trap. Please. Please.

Cranking the wheel hard, she eased onto the gas pedal. The front fender scraped black paint off the side of a BMW. Metal screeched as she pushed the car back against the median. Maybe she hadn’t quite gotten the hang of driving a bus. Hopefully, no one was around to hear.

As soon as the bus straightened out, she pulled the steering wheel in the other direction. An ache spread from her clenched jaw and tightened her scalp. Who was the idiot that designed such a tight turn? She jerked backward when the bus jumped the curb. Her hand shot out and her fingers curled into Oscar’s jacket, keeping him on his feet.

“Whoa!” His dirty nails dug into her arm.

“Why don’t you put the walkie back and sit down?” She rolled through the empty gas station bays.

With a shrug, he tucked it back into the jeans pocket on the dash then smoothed the fabric flat and fiddled with the tape. By the time he’d finished, the bus had coasted into the fast food joint’s parking lot.

Kids. She shook her head and shifted the bus into park. A check in the rearview mirror showed that Mr. Johnson hadn’t stirred in his seat.

Faye grabbed Oscar by the scruff of his neck and shoved him toward his seat, catching Audra’s eye. “He passed around four this morning.”

Fear banded her lungs. He’d been recovering yesterday. Well, the day before yesterday. Still, she couldn’t remember the Redaction killing so fast or folks seeming to recover then getting worse. She shook off the thoughts. She’d think about it later, when they were safe with the soldiers. “Do you want to check for strangers?”

Shaking her head, Faye glanced outside. “I’ll watch over the children.”

Great. Audra ran her fingers through the keys in the ignition. She had to go outside. With shaking fingers, she undid her seatbelt. The metal buckle clunked against the floor but she barely heard it over the pounding in her ears. Slowly, she turned in the seat. Her legs tingled from the change in position. “Get me the flashlight.”

“Why? It’s not dark outside.”

Really? Was the woman so dense or was she desperate to get behind the wheel? God, what if she took off, leaving Audra behind? She flexed her fingers. Faye wouldn’t take off without the supplies or fuel. “For protection from unfriendly strangers.”

Children lined up behind Faye—each doing a unique potty dance.

Faye spun around but didn’t make an effort to move. “Can someone pass the flashlight forward?”

Like a green baton, they passed it overhead until it reached the front of the bus.

Faye was smirking when she turned again. “Here you go.”

Audra’s palm closed around the warm metal. “Thanks. If it’s safe, I’ll radio for the children and you can empty the slops pot.”

Faye gasped.

If Audra had to risk her life, she shouldn’t have to lug the poop as well. Squaring her shoulders, she tugged on the metal handle and the doors folded back. Warm air rushed in. Under the ever present smoke, she detected the faint odor of calamari thrown on a hot charcoal grill. Her stomach clenched.

Somewhere close by, people had burned.

Please don’t let them have been alive at the time.
She finished the prayer as her boots scraped asphalt. The last buses in the caravan pulled up until they bracketed the fast food restaurant. A man in a gas mask and camouflage exited the bus behind her. Eddie swung his shotgun left then right then rushed her.

Exiting bus seven-niner, a man in a dirty business suit waved his pistol in the air then jogged to the area behind the bus. Principal Dunn sure did like acting like a desperado, then again, after twenty-nine years, maybe he hoped he could shoot some of the more difficult parents as payback. She hoped it didn’t get him killed. A moment later, a trim woman in torn jeans and an oversized AC/DC tee-shirt jumped off the bus. Tina, her former teaching assistant, gave her a thumbs-up, swung her Louisville slugger for a moment before setting it on her shoulder.

Eddie puffed like Darth Vader as he slid to a stop next to her. A snakehead tattoo throbbed over his carotid artery. “We got twenty-two dead, Princess.”

She winced. Only he made
princess
sound like an insult. But she was above such things. She was a Silvestre.

“Seventeen for us.” Audra set her hand against her bandanna as the wind tried to sneak under the fabric. Her ears pricked and her heart tripped over a beat. Did she hear voices?

Tina sprinted from Principal Dunn’s side to join them. A sheriff’s deputy in faded khakis replaced her and tamed the pistol waving.

“We have ten dead on our bus. Principal Dunn thinks we can put them in the gas station.” She jerked her chin at the boarded up building. Her blue surgical mask slipped and her almond-shaped brown eyes widened as she shoved it back in place.

A hot wind bent the weeds and shook the busses. In the distance, something exploded.

Audra flinched and faced the noise. Black smoke belched from a neighborhood across a vacant lot. Evil red fireflies danced in the cloud. The sparks landed on the shingle roofs.

Frown lines appeared on Tina’s forehead. “I wonder what caused the explosion.”

“People.” Eddie wheezed. “If we stay here too long, they’ll find us. We need to complete our business
before
they attack.”