Janet stood there, trying to make sense of the chorus of voices, remembering the blue saucer rising up out of Hopman’s Hollow.
What in the blazes is going on here?
* * *
It took the return of the sheriff to calm things down. It wasn’t that he had any new insights on the town’s predicament, or any good news to impart, but his physical presence, air of authority and his reputation for taking no nonsense were more than enough to get the respect of everyone present. Even Ellen Simmons fell quiet, for a moment at least.
“We’re heading out,” he shouted. “All aboard that’s going aboard.”
People started to shuffle out of the hall.
“All set, Doctor?” Bill said to Janet.
“Ready when you are, Sheriff.”
“Well I for one refuse to leave until we’re told just who is responsible for this farce.”
Janet didn’t have to turn round to know who had spoken. Ellen Simmons’ voice was unmistakable, especially in such close quarters.
The sheriff took it in stride.
“That’s just peachy by me, Ellen. It’ll leave more room for somebody who really needs it. The rest of us are getting out of here.”
Bill and Janet managed to shepherd everybody out. Janet wasn’t surprised to see Ellen Simmons exit alongside everyone else.
People gathered in a growing crowd in the car park outside the church hall. Apart from the reddish glow in the sky in the north, above where the trailer park had been, there was nothing apart from some bandages on the gathered people to show the severity of what had unfolded scant hours before. Several yellow school buses sat in the parking area outside the hall. The sheriff walked over to the one nearest the road, and Janet followed him over. Two men got out and stood at the door.
“You sober, Charlie?” Bill said. Both Charlie and Fred Grant, who stood beside him, replied.
“Yes, sir.”
Both were so obviously trying to appear more sober than they actually were that Janet might have laughed in other circumstances. Charlie straightened up and threw the sheriff a mock salute. Suddenly he looked much more like a man in control of himself.
“Reporting for duty, sir,” he said, his tone crisp and military-style. Janet remembered stories she’d heard of Charlie’s service in Vietnam, and his long, stoic battle against the wounds he’d received there.
He might be the right man for the job after all.
“As long as you’re sure?” Bill said.
“Just give the order, sir,” Charlie replied, and saluted again.
Bill laughed.
“And you can cut that shit out right now, soldier, or I’ll have you peeling potatoes for a month.”
Bill turned to Janet.
“Start getting them onboard, Doc,” he said. “I’ll join you once we get everybody set.”
The boarding started. Fred Grant helped Janet get the less able of the wounded up into the bus. There were two other buses in the car park, and a small convoy of pickup trucks and taxis. Alongside the walking wounded, more townspeople arrived every minute. Bill had said they would move out as one. It looked like the town had taken him at his word, and was even now starting to line up in an orderly queue behind his squad car. Charlie and Fred’s bus was first in the queue behind that. Janet considered joining Bill in the squad car, but immediately decided against it. Her place was with the wounded, for now at least. She waited until the bus filled up, then stepped up inside.
“Can we go now?” a well-known voice called out. Ellen Simmons was making her presence felt again.
Charlie was in the driver’s seat, with Fred Grant at his shoulder. He saluted again as Janet stepped up beside him.
“All aboard that’s coming aboard,” Charlie said in a singsong voice. “Get your kicks on Route 66.”
Janet looked the man in the eye.
“You sure you’re sober, Charlie?”
“About as sober as I’m hoping to be,” he replied. Fred patted him on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Doc. He’s got enough coffee in him to float a boat, and I’ll make sure he stays on the straight and narrow.”
That didn’t fill her with confidence, given that Fred didn’t seem quite sober either. She had been planning to sit with one of the more seriously wounded for the journey, but after seeing the drivers, she decided she’d stay up front, ready to take over if needed.
“Any idea where we’re headed?” Charlie asked.
“Town limits to the west first, then on to County Hospital,” Janet replied.
“Right you are, Doc. First star to the left, and straight on till morning.”
The sheriff led them out minutes later.
* * *
The view from a high position through the front window gave Janet plenty of opportunity to see what was happening to the town. To the left of the road everything looked normal, sturdy and serene. But on the northern side the town had fallen into chaos. There were no collapsed holes as such in the immediate area, but the houses showed evidence of severe subsidence, most of them having fallen in on themselves to various degrees; roofs listing, walls collapsed or, in some cases, fallen in completely.
Janet got another indication of the scale of the disaster as they crested Hope Hill and drove past the church. What had been the neatest cemetery in the county was gone, replaced by a gaping black hole. Tombstones, like gray teeth, lay toppled on the sides of the new chasm, and Janet saw two corpses, obviously torn and tossed from their coffins. The old church itself, a feature in the town since its building almost two hundred years before, had sunk in on one side, giving it a lopsided look. Its northern edge perched precariously over a cliff that hadn’t been there an hour before. Several of the passengers on the bus let out wails at the sight, and Janet was grateful as they drove on and left the grisly scene behind.
As they turned onto the approach, to the western outskirts of town, she started to hope they might be free and clear when she noticed that all of the buildings, on both sides of the road, seemed to have escaped any damage. She even stopped worrying about Charlie’s driving; he seemed more than capable of keeping the bus in a straight line, which was almost all that would be required for the long stretch of road ahead.
“Don’t worry, Doc,” Fred said at her side. “The old buzzard knows what he’s doing.”
“Most fun I’ve had with my trousers on,” Charlie replied, and cackled.
Janet let herself relax slightly. Then she heard it. At first she wasn’t sure, as the bus itself was old; the engine far from quiet. But when a fresh nosebleed started, she knew. The hum had returned.
We’re in trouble.
A child screamed, and the passengers moved restlessly.
“Doc?” someone called out. “We’re going to need more cotton swabs back here. I got another nosebleed.”
“Me too.”
“And me.”
Janet tasted blood on her own lip, and saw Charlie wipe fresh blood away from his left nostril onto the arm of his shirt.
“Should have had more JD,” he said. But he kept the bus in a straight line, although he now had pain etched in his eyes.
Pressure built. Janet felt tension tighten the muscles of her chest and neck and tried, unsuccessfully, to calm a heart that threatened to thud out of her rib cage. Her head felt like it had been clamped in a vise again, one that was tightening by the second. The child’s screams continued, louder and more forceful now, and were joined by other shouts of pain and confusion. Some of the passengers started to get out of their seats, seemingly intent on heading for the door.
“Sit down,” Charlie shouted in a voice that surprised her with the force and authority in it. “Sit down, now, or I’ll kick your asses from here to Kansas and back.”
He didn’t take his eyes from the road, but it had worked; whether by shock tactics or sheer force of personality, the passengers returned to their seats. The bus bounced and rocked, as if the road surface itself was moving beneath them.
The hum got louder, and the pressure in Janet’s skull grew until she felt she might scream.
The squad car ahead of them lurched violently and almost went off road before getting back on a straight line. The bus bounced, as if the road had suddenly become a switchback. She saw Charlie glance in the side mirror, and then his knuckles whitened as he gripped the wheel tighter.
“Doc,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I’d grab hold of something. Things are about to get a mite bumpy.”
Janet grabbed the nearest vertical handrail. The bus rocked left, then right. Something in the suspension squealed in protest.
We’ll bust an axle if this keeps up.
She had to hold tight to avoid being thrown off her feet. A fresh jolt threw her sideways, and as she instinctively gripped the handrail tighter, there was a tug and hot tear at her shoulder that told her she’d done some muscle damage that would hurt like blazes later. Finally she found her balance and got both hands on the rail. The rear end of the bus bounced several feet off the road and came back down with a crash that threw folks from their seats and knocked out the rear window in a tumble of glass and screeching metal. The vehicle swayed sharply left, then right again, before Charlie got it straight.
“We’re clear,” he shouted.
Janet remembered to breathe. Fred turned and raised a thumb. There was no accompanying smile. His face had gone white, and his expression was grim.
“Those behind us ain’t been so lucky.”
* * *
Bill brought the squad car to a screeching halt, forcing Charlie to hit the brakes hard and stop the bus just short of running into the other vehicle. The sheriff got out of the squad car and headed back down the road, along the side of the bus and out of Janet’s sight. The bus was full of shouting, angry passengers.
“Anybody that wants out is free to go,” Charlie said. He hadn’t spoken loudly, but his voice seemed to cut through all other conversation, bringing it to an abrupt halt. The bus fell quiet. Ellen Simmons looked fit to burst, but it was obvious to Janet that even the town harridan had been, for now at least, quelled by Charlie’s obvious sincerity.
Janet heard Bill call out beyond the rear of the bus, a cry of pain.
“Let me out,” she said, pushing past Fred and making for the door.
Charlie opened the door, but put a hand on her arm.
“There ain’t nothing you’ll want to see, Doc,” he said.
“I’m not going to
see
anything, Charlie,” she said, so quiet that only he and Fred would hear. “The sheriff needs me.”
Charlie nodded, and looked her in the eye.
“Just prepare yourself, Doc. It ain’t pretty.”
She discovered that for herself seconds later. She stepped down off the bus and joined Bill at the rear.
It was also now the rear of the convoy.
There was no sign of any of the other vehicles that had been following; they were all lost, gone down into a new black pit that stretched from close to their feet off along the road, as far as they could see in the dark. All that remained of the convoy that had followed them was a few wisps of steam rising from the hole, and even that was swiftly dispersed in the breeze.
Bill called out. “Anybody needing help?”
There was no reply, no sound save the chugging of the school bus engine.
Bill started forward. He might have thrown himself down into the hole if Janet hadn’t held him back.
“No, Bill. We need you here.”
He struggled for several seconds, but not too hard. It was as if most of his fight had drained out of him at the sight of the hole and what had just happened.
“That was near half the townsfolk,” Bill whispered. His face went white, and he started to tremble. “Gone like they’ve never been here.” Tears ran down his cheeks.
She took him by the hand.
“We can come back,” she said. “Come back and check for survivors once we find someone to help. But we need to get those who are left to safety. And we need to do it fast. We don’t know where or when it’ll happen again.”
Bill wiped absentmindedly at the fresh blood that dripped from his left nostril, leaving a long smear on the arm of his shirt. He looked into the hole one last time; then he let Janet pull him away.
“I’ll be back,” he whispered, and Janet knew it was a promise, not just to the folks lost in the deep, but to himself.
When Bill headed for the squad car, she went with him, waving to Charlie and Fred on the way past to let them know. She got in the passenger seat.
“Somebody’s gonna pay for this,” Bill said. He had fresh tears running down both cheeks, leaving clean trails in the night’s accumulated grime. But his eyes were bright and clear.
Janet realized something else. The hum had gone again, as fast as it had come. Her nosebleed had stopped and the headache, although not quite gone, had faded into the background.
Bill put the squad car in gear and drove away.
She saw in her wing mirror that the bus fell in behind them. Behind that there was only a yawning darkness.
11