Do it. DO IT.
Lol thanks.
Gosh ok TW for religious trauma, implied/referenced child abuse, minor character death
My horror story that would not be accepted into the Horro Zine
The cold is tickling my nose when I wake up. My head’s leaning against the bus window, but I don’t remember falling asleep.
I look outside, but can’t see anything and I try to wipe away the frost, but it’s just that there’s so much snow outside everything’s white.
The bus isn’t moving, so I unbuckle my seatbelt and walk up to Mr. Stanley, the bus driver. I’m not supposed to bother him while he’s driving, but Ms. Candice isn’t here today since we all had to go home really quickly.
They should have just canceled school in the first place. It was December 23rd, so a lot of kids weren’t at school anyway because they were visiting family. I remember Lilah bragging about going on a cruise to the Bahamas.
And then the principal announced that everyone had to go home because a big storm was coming. The teachers rushed to get everyone’s parents to come, and buses for the people whose parents couldn’t, like me.
Mr. Stanley was slumped over the front of the driver’s wheel. Even though his eyes were open he wasn’t moving.
Then a gust of wind blew through. I thought the bus doors had been open, but no. The front window of the bus had shattered, and a large shard of glass was sticking out from Mr. Stanley’s chest.
He’s dead.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do when the bus driver is dead.
I slip my hand into my pocket and wrap around the rosary Grandmother gave me, and whisper the Hail Mary.
It’s the best prayer I know to pray for his soul.
“Lucille?” For a second I hope it’s Mary, but it’s just Berenice. She’s the only other girl in my class who takes this bus, but I don’t talk to her because I’ll end up asking about her hair.
She always wears braids with colorful beads on the end. It’s really pretty, but Mother says I can’t have my hair like that, it’s not ladylike. So I have to sit every morning while she takes the flatiron and straightens my hair by herself, complaining that my tight curls always manage to work themselves into kinks when I go to bed.
“Are you ok?” Berenice asks me.
“Mr. Stanley is dead,” I say, softly.
Berenice gasps. “Should we tell the other kids?”
I blink. “Why not.”
“Um, because I don’t know if they’re supposed to know about stuff like that yet and we’re the oldest?”
I guess we are the only fourth graders left on the bus at this point. I straighten a bit. If we’re the oldest, then we’re in charge.
“Let’s go look at everyone else.”
I follow Berenice to the back of the bus, where all the other kids sit. There are only a few of us left on the bus at this point.
“Um, hi,” I say. “I’m Lucille.” I’ve never spoken to the kids on the back of the bus. They’re noisy and misbehave and Ms. Candice always has to yell at them.
“This is Morton,” Berenice says, pointing to a boy in a red knit hat. I know his name despite never having met him, because every so often Ms. Candice will yell Morton! Sit down!
Berenice points to two boys in yellow and green coats. “This is Aiden and Andrew, they’re twins.” I nod at them, and they stare back at me.
“And this is Tilly, she’s in kindergarten,” Berenice finishes, pointing to a girl dwarfed by all the snow gear she’s wrapped up in.
“Where’s Mr. Stanley?” Morton asks, eyeing me.
“U- um– he’s… he’s in a better place now?”
Berenice’s eyes widen, but I don’t know what else to say. Morton gets it, Aiden and Andrew look confused, and Tilly is unreadable.
“We should go out the back door,” Berenice says. “The front is blocked.”
At the idea of opening the emergency door, Morton’s eyes light up and he rushes back to pull on the big red handle, but struggles to fully push the door open.
The rest of them go and help, and between the six of them, they manage to shove the door open.
Berenice carefully climbs down first, her feet barely touching the ground as they hang over the edge of the bus.
I stay on the bus and try to help the others get out. I think that’s what Ms. Candice would do. Morton and the twins go first, then I pick up Tilly and hand her down to Berenice.
Finally, I get out myself, my feet dangling over the edge of the bus before I jump down.
We’re at the stretch of the road that’s by the forest before getting to my stop, which is pretty far away from any of the other houses.
Usually, I can read a whole chapter of a book from the beginning of the woods to crossing the bridge into my neighborhood.
“Whoa!” Morton yells, and I spin, not aware that he’d run over into the middle of the road and was staring at the bus. “Look, it’s up in the air!”
I can see what he means when I get there. The back of the bus is up in the air, while the front is buried in a pile of snow we must have crashed into. But that’s not important right now.
“Don’t run into the middle of the road!” I say. “What if a car comes!”
Morton shrugs as best as he can in his snow coat. “Then we can get help?”
I grab his hand and take him back, because I don’t know what to say to that.
“Hey, do either of you have a phone?” Berenice asks when we get back. I shake my hand, I’m not allowed to have one. Mother calls it the devil’s plaything.
Morton pulls a flip phone out of his pocket. “I already tried it,” he says. “Ugh if my stupid dad had just gotten me a new one when I asked–”
“How’d that help?” Tilly asks, her voice muffled by her scarf. “I thought the phone didn’t work because we’re too far from a tower?”
“Well the new phones can use satellites to make calls from anywhere,” Morton says.
“Satellites?”
“Big things they shoot into space with rockets!”
Tilly tilts her head. I don’t think she believes him, but I wouldn’t know any better. I don’t know if Tilly’s even right about cell towers.
It’s a little embarrassing, that the kindergartener knows more about cellphones than I do.
“So, if we can’t call anyone, what should we do?” Aiden asks.
“If there’s an emergency, we’re supposed to stay in one place,” I say. I know that much at least. “Just like the shooter drills at school.”
“But it’s really cold,” Andrew says. “And if we can’t call for help, how are we supposed to get someone to come?”
“Someone will be by eventually. And it’s cold, but we can go back in the bus!”
“The window at the front of the bus is broken,” Berenice says. “So it won’t be warmer.”
“And people aren’t s’posed to be driving a lot ‘cause of the storm,” Aidan adds.
“I think we should walk until we find the first house we can,” Berenice says. “Then we can ask them to call for help.”
“That’s a far walk,” I say.
“Better than freezing to death here!” Morton says.
“F-freeze to death?” Tilly gasps.
“No one’s freezing to death,” Berenice says, patting Tilly on the shoulder. “If we move around a bunch, we’ll stay warm! And if we head along the road, we might see a car.”
Everyone else seems happy with this, so I nod too. We decide to continue towards the bridge because I had finished a bit over half my book chapter before the bus crashed, so we were closer to that end.
Berenice goes up front, and we all hold hands despite Morton’s complaining. I’m in the back, and I’m trying to listen for cars.
For a second I think I hear something move, but it’s not from down the road. I turn my head towards the noise and see a flash of red in the woods.
I shake my head and the red thing is gone, the forest is green and brown and grey like usual.
We keep moving forward.
