Still green in the face, Steve helped Shane lift Matt off the wet highway and carry him to the bus. Matt was lighter than Shane expected, but then he realized a leg must weigh a lot and grew dizzy from the thought. Tracy followed behind them with the dismembered part under her arm, like she was carrying a rolled-up rug or something. Shane couldn’t believe how calm she remained. He’d always thought her quiet and a little nerdy, never imagining this serious girl from school could turn out to be tougher than anyone he’d ever known.
“Lay him on the first seat,” Tracy called after Shane and Steve once they climbed into the bus. “And keep him warm.”
Shane and Steve carefully lowered the unconscious boy onto a blanket Kelly rolled out. Then she covered him with more blankets. Rushing down the steps and onto the freeway, Shane gasped for air and leaned back against the bus, trying not to pass out.
“You okay?” Tracy asked coolly, closing the lid on a long, blue cooler near the door of the supply bus.
“Yeah,” Shane lied.
“Matt’s leg is in here, on ice,” she said, patting the cooler. “If we can get to the army base soon enough, maybe they can save it.” She sounded skeptical.
“Good,” he replied, wanting to quit talking about the damn leg.
He stared out into the dark forest, wishing he could run into the trees and find a quiet place to sit, a place where he could get away from everyone. He wanted to pretend none of this had happened, if only for a few minutes until his mind could clear.
Aaron stumbled out of the darkness, hunched over so much it made Shane taller than him for once. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and looked at Shane with teary, bloodshot eyes.
“You’re going to have to drive my bus,” Tracy said to Aaron, her tone all business and no sympathy. “I’m riding with Shane to look after Matt.”
Shane turned to Steve. He cleared his throat and tried to show a semblance of the calm confidence Tracy managed with such ease. “You should lead the way in the supply bus. It’ll be better to keep our passengers in the rear in case we run into trouble.”
After giving a feeble nod, Aaron staggered over and climbed into Tracy’s bus. The rear tires were still fifteen feet into the median, but out of the deepest part. Looking like a zombie, Aaron leaned over the steering wheel and stared out of the windshield, his face slack with shock. He started the bus and shifted it in gear. The rear tires spun, spitting gravel and mud into the ditch, but the bus moved forward and climbed onto the asphalt. Even in his shocked state, Shane trusted Aaron was a better driver than Tracy was. Aaron had hung out at the mechanic shop since they were both little, and they’d raced go-carts on the North Georgia circuit until they were fourteen. Few kids in the school had as much time behind the wheel as Shane and Aaron did.
“Matt will be okay,” Kelly announced. It sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as anyone else. She climbed out of the bus holding new shirts and shorts from the hardware store and a gallon of water in her other hand. “He’s sleeping now.”
“Probably better if he’s asleep,” Shane replied, fearing Matt might be dying. “He’d be in a lot of pain if he were awake.”
“Wash up with this,” she held out the gallon of water, “and put these on.” After setting the water and clothes on the bottom step, she turned and climbed back up into the bus.
Beyond caring that everyone might see him, Shane stripped off his blood-soaked clothing, down to his underwear, and rinsed with the water before passing the jug to Steve. The color returned to the big guy’s face, but he still looked like death. After they got dressed in fresh clothes, Steve walked down the freeway with his head hung low and entered the supply bus.
Shane noticed the children who had exited the buses staring at him with horrified expressions on their faces. In the midst of all that had gone on, he’d forgotten about them. The numbness he’d experienced after his aunt’s death set its teeth in again, and he stood taller. Images swirling in his head of his dead family and of Matt’s blood squirting out of the hilt of his butchered leg blurred and then vanished, his mind becoming dark and empty. He remembered how much it frightened him when the blankness came after his aunt died. Now it felt like a cheap, wool blanket pulled around him, warm and almost comforting, but also scratchy enough to remind him it couldn’t be right—that if he embraced the numbness long enough, he’d likely snap and go mad.
“Load up,” he shouted at the gaping, young faces, annoyed how they looked at him like he had all the answers.
The kids blinked, as if waking from deep sleep. They focused on Shane for an instant longer, and then calmness flowed across their faces, his gruff instructions saving them from catatonia. Splitting into two groups, half marched over and climbed into Aaron’s bus, and the rest walked past Shane, climbing onto his bus.
After the last kid was loaded, Shane climbed aboard and plopped in the driver’s seat, ensuring his eyes didn’t fall on Matt as he did. The metallic smell of blood permeated the air in the bus, sending another wave of bile into Shane’s throat. When he turned the key, his Freightliner’s diesel roared to life, the deep, soothing sound echoing off the dark pine forest lining the freeway. The smell of exhaust and the sounds, from a diesel or gas engine, had always been a comfort to him. Even though it reminded him his father was dead, he allowed the grumbling diesel to relax him once again. Steve’s supply bus lurched forward, and he led the way, heading south. Shane pulled past Aaron’s bus, taking up the second position in the small convoy.
“Maybe we should use this antibiotic ointment on the bandages before we put them on,” he heard Kelly say.
He glanced up into the rearview mirror, getting a snapshot of his growing human cargo. The kids sat two in each seat, all wearing the same somber expression, looking like their youthful souls were sucked out of them and they’d never smile again. Tracy held a stack of gauze over Matt, with Kelly squeezing out little tubes of antibiotic ointment from the first aid kits onto them. Kelly’s long hair was pulled up into a sloppy ponytail. Looking at her made a bit of the foggy numbness draw back. He had to get her to safety, if no one else. She was his focal point.
Further south, the road got more cluttered with wrecked cars. By the time they reached the exit leading into Canton, the buses slowed to a crawl. Steve used the supply bus like a bulldozer, pushing cars out of the way to clear a path through which they could drive. Shane kept his bus ten feet behind Steve’s, so he couldn’t see the road just in front of him. But the big vehicle rocked over something soft once in a while, giving him a sickening reminder that the dark road beneath his tires had the corpses of adults and animals strewn across it.
“How are you doing?” Kelly asked.
Shane jerked, having almost forgotten a busload of people sat behind him. Kelly slipped up next to him without him noticing, perched on the top of the steps, rubbing her eyes like she’d just woken up.
He opened his mouth to answer, but his parched throat couldn’t make a sound. Kelly’s brow rose in understanding. She reached back under the first row of seats and pulled out a soda. Popping it open, she held it in front of him. Grateful, he latched onto the drink, draining half of it in three gulps. The carbonation soothed his throat, and the sugar and caffeine seemed to flow straight into his brain, waking him up.
“Thanks,” he grunted, his nose tickling. “I’ll live.”
“Sun’s coming up,” Kelly mused with a hopeful tone, pointing out the open window on Shane’s left side.
“Yeah it is,” he replied and took another gulp of the cola.
She stood next to him in silence, slipping pieces of a granola bar into his mouth so he could keep his hands on the steering wheel. He didn’t feel hungry and wouldn’t have eaten if it weren’t for Kelly. His last meal had been the meager jelly and peanut butter sandwich the night before, and he’d barfed most of that up, so he knew his stomach was empty.
“How’s your little sister?” Shane asked, suddenly hating the silence.
br /> “Asleep,” Kelly replied. “She’s doing better than I am.” She fed him the next bite of his breakfast. “I think she’s figured out that things aren’t good. We had a long cry together, and then she started consoling me, telling me everything would be alright. I swear, it’s like she’s an old soul. So much wiser than me.”
“I can see that about her.” Shane twisted his head to the right and then left, trying to relieve the tension built up in his neck from driving all night.
The sky went from black to dark green. They crept across a tall bridge, and a loud screech of rubber sliding across the highway filled the hot and humid morning air as Steve pushed another car out of the way. Shane wondered absently how busted up the supply bus’ front end was. He worried it might break down before they made it to the military base.
Kelly crumpled the empty granola bar wrapper and shoved it into her pocket. Sitting down on the top step, she leaned back against the partition separating the front right seat from the exit. Instead of the sky turning to a lighter blue with the rising sun, it became the unnerving lime green color it had been the day before, with ominous, thick clouds hanging low overhead.
“At least the wind is gone and the rain stopped,” Shane said, looking up at the heavens and worrying about what weather might be in store for them today.
Three quarters of the way across the bridge, the supply bus in front of Shane came to a halt.
“There’s another bunch of kids up ahead,” Steve’s tired voice chirped through the CB radio. “They look pretty rough.”