Short Bus Hero (25 page)

The crowd doesn’t like the way he’s talking to Ally.

Neither do I.

But Ally struts to a corner and does her best bodybuilder’s pose.

Cheers and laughter fly from the crowd.

“You blew me off before, but I’m not kidding around this time. You fight me like an honest human being.” Heh.

Ally giggles and slaps her thigh. She still has a hard time believing any of this is real, that winning the lottery, and everything that’s happened since then, wasn’t just a dream. She runs over to Murray in mincing little steps, her hands flapping.

“Ah…ah…alright, Dr-Dra-Drake. I’ll take you on,” she says into the microphone. She smiles around the auditorium, then makes her meanest face, sticking out her bottom teeth, crunching her eyebrows together.

Oh, man, this is craziness. Too funny.

“But if I w-w-win…I g-get the WWC,” she says.

Drake looks around the arena with an over-the-top “can-you-believe-this” expression.

“Okay, Short Bus, and if you lose—like you’re gonna—I get the HHH.”

And so begins a new era in the gut-busting trash-talking world of professional wrestling, the money-making machine that is the rivalry between Ally Forman and Drake Murray, starring America’s latest sweethearts: vampires, werewolves, and—
ahem
—angels (the way they still portray us, with halos and wings… gag). The fight between Ally and Drake Forman never actually happens, but they talk about it ad nauseum, and have even had costumes made up (Ally’s character, Short Bus Hero, is outfitted in a costume with a cape, which she absolutely adores). They make appearances together, dressed in costume, and people eat that stuff right up, man. It’s not a formal alliance, it’s mostly just spur-of-the-moment stuff. It’s an awesome marketing tool for both of them. Someday, the fight will happen, but not until they really need it to keep business going.

Hmmm, how about a reality show, focusing solely on their rivalry?

How ghastly.

“Short Bus Hero”—I love it!

46. Rapture
/ răp'-chər /
transporting of a person from one place to another, especially to heaven

L
ois stands on her tiptoes
and tightens her arms around Stryker’s neck. He savors the squeeze as a warm springtime breeze blows Lois’s fragrant locks around, tickling his nose. She drops her arms and takes a step back.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to take you to the airport? Or at least have our driver take you?” She is sad. The emotion is unexpected. This guy had ripped them off for half a million bucks and skipped town, remember? But that was months ago and it hardly matters anymore. He has more than made up for it by helping Ally to find her place in the world, helping her find her way back to happiness, helping her through some of the darkest days of her life.

Ally stands a few feet from her mother, father, brother, and Stryker. She stares at the ground, talking softly to some unseen confidant, nodding her head every couple of seconds. She is a famous lady now, rich beyond her wildest dreams. More importantly, though, she is capable of making the majority of her own decisions, and her controlling mother trusts her to do so. She did what she’d set out to do—she made Stryker a star. She would miss him. Almost as much as she misses Jason. She doesn’t want to think about it. She sings David Archuleta’s “Crush” in her head.

Stryker gazes at the moon face that had so greatly disturbed him when he’d first met her. He feels disgusted with himself for ever feeling disgust for her. He is ashamed of how he used to be, of who he used to be. He loves the Formans. They gave him a courage he never thought he’d have. Ally gave him his life back. She gave him his son and his integrity, too.

“Nah,” he says, shaking Earl’s hand, then thumping the yellow roof of the waiting taxi. “It’s better this way. I don’t want you guys to see me cry.” He laughs. They all do, but it isn’t a joke.

The taxi pulls him away from the original Jason Gibson Cool People’s Group Home, popping more than a few heartstrings on its descent down the hill. Stryker’s going to set up the Home’s second location. He stares straight ahead, blinking back the tears.

Debra takes his hand.

“Boston is a great town,” she says, smiling.

Great, now Ally needs to find a new nurse.

* * *

“Get a-a-away from me, y-you butthead!” Ally gives Kevin a shove. “Don’t you have to…to…to go to w-work or s-something?”

“Nah, you gave me the day off, remember?” Kevin is Ally’s Vice President of Marketing. He’s surprisingly good at it. Even if he is a butthead. He may take his band on that world tour someday, but for now, he’s good just chilling with his little sister.

Kevin grabs Ally’s Prada purse and runs up the front steps. “Come and get it. You got any good CDs in here, or is it all Justin Bieber and
Frozen
crap?”

Ally stomps into the house after her brother.

“I’m t-t-telling Mom, Kevin.”

Lois is glad they still need her.

Kevin’s smartass response is lost somewhere behind the towering double front door.

Lois holds Earl’s hand as they watch Stryker’s taxi wind down the hill.

An urge to purge the house of her moving boxes filled with magazines and junk begins to reveal itself to Lois. She’ll make a run to Goodwill tomorrow, maybe visit the dump, too.

It’s time to let go, and she’s okay with that.

It is what it is.

* * *

Later that evening, Ally gets a phone call. Drake Murray himself calls to offer to buy her out for an unbelievable amount of money, an amount even greater than what she’d won in the Megalomillions lottery.

“Listen, missy, if you won’t sell to me,” he says, “how about this? We form an alliance. Make it official. Contracts, jointly licensed consumer products, the works. Huh, huh?”

“What do you m-m-mean? Li-like work to-together?”

“Yeah, you know, like we’ll work out one of those invasion storylines, kind of merge the WWC and the HHH. You can even be a central character, how about that? Short Bus Hero. Well?”

Ally thinks they could probably make a ton of money that way, but she’d have to talk to Tony to be sure. She really didn’t care for Murray, though. He was so mean to Stryker.

“What about Stryker?” she asks into her Bluetooth headset as she pulls out strand after strand of Window Washer Barbie’s sparse yellow hair.

“Come on,” Murray purrs. “You don’t need that lying scumbag. I’ll make you a star, baby!”

She doesn’t need Murray. She is doing just fine on her own. She will stand by Stryker. He’s a good guy. He is her friend. No one thinks she ever doubted Stryker, not even when he took her money and lied about going to Vegas, but she did. She worried just as much as Lois did. And she worried about Lois. Her mother’s hoarding, drinking, and controlling behavior all affected Ally. But, she never gave up hope. And it changed the lives of everyone around her. It helped them grow into better people.

She always had faith, which is more than I can say for myself.

“I’m already a star,” Ally says before she severs the connection.

She’ll battle Murray’s organization until her dying day. She’ll do it for Stryker.

And for Jason, too.

And then she’ll have an even bigger job to do.

She will be like me.

There’s this famous painting dating back to something like the sixteenth century, a Flemish nativity scene. It shows an angel with facial features typical of a human with Down syndrome. Yes, way. Legend has it that the Spirit World was trying to send a message to humanity through the painter. The painter’s guide had whispered his most personal secret to him, and he painted it for the human world to see. Not many took note of it, ignoring it like most “normal” people ignore those with Down syndrome. But the truth has always been there for anyone who is interested in really seeing.

So, have you guessed?

Yeah. I was once like her, like Ally.

I had Down syndrome when I walked among humans.

We all did, all of us angels. Call us Dear Ones.

And, like her, I was humiliated and frustrated, always wanting to be “normal.” Ha. “Normal” is nothing compared to what we are destined to become.

Like Jason said, when we die, it’s like we suddenly know everything, we become everything we ever wanted to be and more than we ever dreamed possible.

We have a much higher purpose than anyone ever guesses.

Ally got lucky way before she won the lottery.

I love my afterlife.

THE END

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book was written at a very difficult time in my life, and it had a couple of false starts before Robert S. Wilson took it on. I was ready to give up on the manuscript and I sent it to Bob just to see what he thought of it, whether I should just call it my first trunk novel and be done with it, or if I should keep trying to place it. Bob read it in one night and said it definitely deserved to be published and that it belonged with one of the big presses. I told him that I’d run out of patience and was onto other things, and asked if he would consider publishing it as a Nightscape Press title. He said he’d be honored, and…here it is, at long last. Thank you, Bob and Jen, for making this book a reality.

Thank you to family, friends, and fellow scribes for your undying support and friendship: the Michaels family; my daughters, Siân and Emma; my blurbists, the talented Scott G. Browne (aka S. G. Browne), Richard Thomas, Bill Breedlove, and Dave Thomas; Jeremy C. Shipp; David Dunwoody; Jonathan Lambert; Christopher S. Nelson; Max Booth III; Sean and Missy Squires; Tabatha Davis.

A special thank you to my amazing husband, Peter Giglio. You are the love of my life, my best friend, and my mentor. You championed this book when I was sure it was a lost cause, like you do all my work. My favorite story is ours.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Shannon Giglio, author of Revival House (2012) and Idols & Cons (2011, both Omnium Gatherum, written under the name S. S. Michaels), and the forthcoming Short Bus Hero (Nightscape Press, December 2014), has appeared in or edited several anthologies (Bleed [with Peter Giglio, Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing], Attic Toys [Evil Jester Press], Detritus [Omnium Gatherum], and Truth or Dare? [with Peter Giglio, Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing]), and has worked as the Acquisitions Editor for Evil Jester Press. She is a member of the Horror Writers Association, and has worked for CBS, Dick Clark Productions, and Scott Free Productions (Ridley Scott). She lives on the Georgia coast with her husband, author Peter Giglio.