The Complete Drive-In

8

The bus hit the pile of cars, hit them hard, knocked our asses about, tossed me over a seat and into another. When I clambered to my feet and looked out, the bus was no longer moving, but it had moved the cars a mite. The darkness had fallen over the front of the bus and covered it like a drop cloth.

Glancing out the back windows, into the light, I saw the fish cave folk were closing from the rear. I could already envision myself being ripped open, my guts pulled out for an appetizer.

Steve jerked the bus in reverse, backed it with a full-throttle wobble, hit a couple of the fish cave folk and drove them down beneath the bus, smashing them like walnuts. Then he gunned the bus forward again, but at an angle. This time he hit one of the cars and really moved it, pushed it back deeper into shadow. He put his foot down hard on the gas, and there was a sound like metal grinding, and smoke rose up from the tires. For a long time the bus just held its spot. Held long enough the fish cave folk reached us and leaped against the back of the bus, up on the bumper and beat at the glass and metal wall there.

The cars began to move, began to slip backward. The bus began to creep forward, taking us and the bus and the pursuing fish cave folk into the darkness.

Steve drove on, the cars parting like the Red Sea, rolling up on either side of us, tumbling along the grate floor. After a few moments, we were deeper into the darkness and the fish cave folk began to fall back.

“They don’t like it here,” Reba said.

“Neither do I,” Steve said. “I just saw something that didn’t look like anything, but like all kinds of things, rush by the hood.”

We were still moving, but we had slowed down. We looked out the windows and saw nothing.

“You still see it?” I asked.

“Nope,” Steve said. “It went by fast.”

“Maybe it was just a shadow,” Grace said. “I didn’t see anything.”

“You weren’t looking straight ahead,” Steve said. “And no, it wasn’t a shadow. Unless they can pull themselves apart from the darkness and… well, I don’t know what it did. Run? Flew? Tumbled? I couldn’t tell you. It was there, then it moved, then it wasn’t there anymore. It was like it fitted itself into the darkness again. It was

… I don’t know, darker than the dark.”

“Stop the bus,” I said.

“You sure?” Steve said.

“They aren’t coming anymore,” I said.

Steve geared the bus down, brought it to a halt. Looking back, it was as if we were down in a dark hole staring up at the sun. Against the light the fish cave folk moved. They grabbed up their dead, and pulled them to the side, set upon the bodies with knives. Fights broke out.

Bjoe appeared from the midst of the fleshy wad, slashing at anything in his way with a bone knife. A throat was cut. A man fell at his feet. The crowd parted around him, scuttled back. At his feet the man whom he had cut thrashed and squirted blood from his throat.

Bjoe looked toward the bus, knife in hand, hair disheveled, dick and balls hanging like some kind of withered fruit. I guessed he could see our shape. He didn’t come toward us though. He just looked at us for a long time, then turned and said something to those around him.

After a moment the fish cave folk moved toward Bjoe, slowly, respectfully. They set about cutting, mostly tearing, at the bus-crushed bodies. Bjoe leaned over and stabbed the quivering man he had wounded a couple of times, ripped him open from gut to gill.

Intestines hissed up steam, and blood gushed. Fish cave folk dropped to their knees and dipped their faces into the bloody body. Some ran off with meaty pieces, like dogs.

Bjoe, realizing his prized long pigs were being taken from him, settled down over the man he had killed, bared his teeth. I couldn’t hear him from there, but I could sure see those teeth. Could even imagine him growling like some protective wild animal.

“I think it’s a good thing we didn’t stay back there,” I said.

“Yeah,” Reba said. “Bjoe has done run all out of nice.”

“He was so friendly the other night,” Cory said.

“Hell,” Grace said. “You wouldn’t know. You were drunk. You ought to be glad we didn’t leave your intoxicated ass lying up there. We thought about it.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” he said.

“I don’t believe it takes a ton of thinking,” I said, “to know that Bjoe is off his nut. He was friendly, and maybe he thought that would work for him. With the girls.”

“Yeah,” Grace said. “He saw you and me as maybe a willing carnival ride. Then, an unwilling lunch.”

“It didn’t turn out so easy for him, though,” Reba said.

“No, it didn’t,” Grace said. “And I wish he’d put something over that big old ugly thing of his. It looks like a turkey neck. You know, cut up for boiling in soup.”

“Don’t make me hungry,” Homer said.

“Course,” James said, moving his head from right to left as he looked out the window. “Bjoe and his bunch may turn out to be the least of our worries. I just saw what Steve saw.”