The Complete Drive-In

10

“They keep working their way closer,” Grace said.

Grace was still at the back of the bus, at the back window, and when she said this, we all took notice. Fact was, we were paying Grace very close attention.

“I hope you don’t kill me for having an opinion,” Homer said. “But, what happened to my plan? We sit here long enough, either Bjoe and his bunch will get us, or these… shadows will, whatever they are.”

“The bus’s lights work, don’t they?” I said.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “I didn’t exactly have time to think about them before, but yeah, they work. I mean, they should, all the dampness didn’t short out a wire.”

“I say we turn on the lights, drive in deeper,” I said. “There isn’t any going back, and we’re going to try and make our way to the rear of the fish anyway, so, crank it up, turn on the lights, and drive on.”

“It’s a start,” Grace said.

I looked to the back of the bus. Bjoe and his followers were standing out of the light, just over the line into the world of shadow.

Bjoe was worrying his pecker as he glared at the bus. He stepped into deeper shadow, and I couldn’t make out his features, then he eased toward us slowly. His minions followed.

“They’re getting a hell of a lot braver,” Grace said.

At that moment, one of the female minions came forward, bent to the ground there in shadow, and made a movement with her hand. There was a spark. She went at it again. More sparks. Then a blaze.

I realized what they were doing. Striking metal to get sparks, knocking it into some tinder. Dried seaweed probably. The little blaze struggled at the shadows then was lit to a torch, most likely coated in fish oil or fish fat. The torch tore a bright hole in the darkness.

Other torches were lit.

Soon there was a crowd of torches moving our way.

“They really want you, Grace,” Homer said.

“They want us all,” Grace said. “We’re nothing to them but a big old dinner.”

Steve said, “All right then. Now we find out. Hold onto your asses.”

He started the bus, hit the lights.

They came on.

A cheer rose up inside the bus.

I know. No big thing. But, hey. We took our victories, small as they might be, where we could get them.

The bus lurched forward, began to pick up speed.

Behind us Bjoe and the others ran after us, their torches bobbing in the shadows like bouncing balls.

Steve put the hammer down, and in a matter of moments they were nothing more than bright pinpricks, and soon the little pieces of light quit moving, but we didn’t. We rolled on.

“Won’t be long,” I said, “and they’ll all eat each other. It’s bound to come down to that eventually.”

“Glad to not be part of the feast,” Reba said.

We slowed and rolled on. The darkness became darker yet, and there started to be a kind of thumping against the side of the bus, against the glass.

Shadows, like large black pieces of construction paper, but with heft, blew about the bus and rocked it, crawled all over it. We could hear them on the roof, scuttling from one end of the bus to the other. Where they had hit the glass was dark, oily slime.

When the glow of the headlights hit them, they scattered. They were ragged in shape. Not one like the other, just torn black curtains of night, the tears all different, all irregular.

Once I saw a split in what could only be described as the dark face of one, and there was something not so dark there. Teeth. Shiny. Almost silver.

“What the fuck are they?” Homer said.

“Parasites,” Reba said. “Maybe some kind of crazy cancers. With dentures. They may be killing our giant fish host as well. Only more slowly than they would kill us.”

“I think they’re just pure pieces of evil,” Homer said. “You see, I finally figured out where we are. It took me some thinking-”

“I bet,” Grace said.

“-but I come to a conclusion. It was our time. We died. And we went to hell.”

“Why the fuck would I go to hell?” Reba said. “Bad language?”

“Me,” Grace said, “I did some serious fucking. But, hey, would that count? There really isn’t a commandment that says no sex. Just no adultery. And besides, I don’t believe that shit anyway. Which part of the Bible you gonna believe. The mean-spirited, mean-assed God of the Old Testament, or the sweet philosopher of the New Testament?”

This didn’t faze Homer.

“That’s where we are,” Homer said. “Hell. We’re being punished.”

“I don’t deserve punishment,” I said. “Well, I didn’t. I’ve done some things since coming here that might be debatable. But to get here, if it’s hell, hey, I must have got in the wrong line somehow.”

“I suppose it could be that,” James said. “The wrong line.”

He had been real quiet up till now, possibly not wanting Grace to leap in the air like a fucking Ninja Turtle and kick his head around in a three-sixty.

“We thought we was all in the line for drunken fun, movies, sex, what have you, and it was a trick line, so to speak. We got in the wrong line… Wrong place at the wrong time.”

“There isn’t any hell,” Grace said, “and if there is, this isn’t it.”

“It’s bad enough to be a hell of sorts,” Reba said.

“We get to make choices still,” Grace said. “I figure that’s hell, when you can’t make choices. When you can’t struggle or strive anymore. Can’t choose to be who you are no matter what the circumstances. We get to that point, then we’re in hell. Right now, we’re still alive.”

About that time Steve brought the bus to a halt.

“Shit,” he said.

We moved to the front of the bus, looked out over the hood. Shadows washed over the hood like floods of ink, but finally they parted long enough for us to see what Steve saw.

A drop-off.

A place that just went… down.

“We won’t be driving any farther,” Steve said. “We’ve come to the end of the trail.”