Chapter 8 (part 1)

Evan was still sitting motionless in his seat when the man with the axes had made his way down the stairs and off of the bus. His hands were clenched tightly at his sides and his head felt like it would float off of his head. From outside, he could hear a hard clasping sound, followed by a few metallic clicks and clanks. This was followed by a slight scuffling noise, during which Evan could feel the bus move a bit.

He realized that what he was hearing and feeling was the luggage compartment on the side of the bus being opened and looked into. But as he pieced this together, another question came to mind: had he simply been overlooked during the unboarding process or had he been left behind on purpose?

The slight rocking of the bus continued, accompanied by a few more metallic clanging sounds and what sounded like muffled voices and grunts. Evan looked to the aisle once more and saw that it was still completely empty. He tried to slowly get to his feet but his legs were shaking and would not cooperate. He stood up anyway, bracing himself with the seat in front of him. He stepped into the aisle and walked a few steps forward.

The overhead lights were still at their brightest peak and when Evan tried to once again look out of the windows, he could see nothing more than the tint of the windows and the glare of the interior lights. As he walked, he noticed that the engine was still idling, something that he had not realized at first due to the rampaging thoughts in his head and the fact that his breath now seemed to be far too loud.

As he took another step, there was a loud metallic slamming sound from outside. The bus rocked a bit and Evan placed the noise to be the closing off the luggage compartment.

Evan froze where he was for a moment, ready to dive into the nearest row of seats when he heard the first footfalls on the entrance steps of the bus. He waited a few moments but the sound never came. Feeling somewhat sure that it was safe to do so, Evan headed forward again. He looked to the front of the bus and saw that the driver had also stepped off. Not only that, but he could tell by the dull glow in the front windshield that the bus’s headlights were still on.

Keeping his eyes on the shine of the headlights through the windshield, Evan walked further down the aisle. He listened closely for any kind of voices from outside but heard nothing.

When he reached the front of the bus, he was a bit tentative. The door stood open and when he peeked over the small enclosure that separated the steps from the bus, the opened door showed only a small area of hardpan dirt. He looked from this to the windshield. He was close enough so that he could now make out what lay in front of the bus and although he wanted to look outside, another part of him was afraid to do so. But, as it always was in Evan’s case, his curiosity was the stronger part of him and he found himself at the windshield, looking out.

The tint of the windshield was obviously not as dark as the passenger windows. This, accompanied by the spotlight that the headlights cast, gave Evan a clear view of his surroundings. He saw that one of his theories had been correct, but this did not ease his mind at all.

At some point during his sleep, the bus had turned off of the main road and had trekked back into the desert. To all sides, as far as the headlights cut through the night, there were no roads to be seen. All there was to see was the large group of people that stood about twenty feet in front of the bus.

The group consisted of all twenty-four heads Evan had counted earlier. In the midst of the group, Evan easily spotted the obese man. He was waddling around as if drunk, with no particular destination in mind, weaving in and out of the people that were around him. Actually, they were all weaving around one another, huddled together as if coming up with a fourth quarter play that would win the game. They stood in a tight group and as Evan spied on them from the bus, he also spotted the biker type with the long grey beard. He could also see the driver among them. He looked closely for the Christopher Lloyd zombie but saw him nowhere.

Seconds later, he discovered why he had been hard to locate.

Eventually, the crowd separated a bit and within the center of the group stood the frail man with the axes.

The crowd began to distance themselves from one another, walking backwards but looking forward the entire time. As they walked away from one another, Evan noticed that they were spreading out into a circle. He watched with a knowing fear in his guts, feeling as if he were about to watch some demented marching band or flag core do a grotesque march.

As they effortlessly walked backwards and made their circle, Evan’s eyes went back to the zombie-like man with white hair. From this distance and through the windshield, his axes looked like extensions of his arms. He still stood in the middle of the circle, looking towards the sky. As he looked upwards, he carried the axes in that direction, holding them up over his head and making a perfect X with them in the air.

Sitting on the ground around him were four human figures, wrapped in what looked to be torn burlap sacks. The sacks started at their necks and covered their bodies to the knees. Their heads were exposed but they had all been gagged and blindfolded. Their arms were tied behind their backs and their legs were bound with thick strands of rope.

They fought helplessly but were unable to move. Evan watched as one—a bald man with a large cut on his head—fought to the point of toppling over, his face landing hard in the dirt.

Evan was pretty sure that these people were what had been taken out of the luggage compartment while he had still cowered in the bus. As he watched all of this unfold, he was suddenly very sure of what was about to happen, yet he could not tear his eyes away from it. Set in the exact center of the headlights’ glare, the whole act seemed like a play acted out by drugged performers.

The shirtless man with the axes looked down from the sky. He said something that Evan could not quite hear clearly from the bus. Whatever it was that he said caused a man to step out of the crowd of twenty-three people. This man was dressed in coveralls and boots, and he carried a large knife in his right hand.

He slowly approached one of the bound figures, walking directly in front of them so that he was almost exactly face to face with the shirtless man with the axes. The man in the overalls used his knife to make a very quick and shallow cut along the victim’s forehead. He said something and then advanced to the next figure where he performed the same act.

He placed this incision on all four of the bound people’s heads. From what Evan could tell, all of the bound were males. By the time the cuts had been made to their heads, their weak fighting and protests had stopped, as if they knew that it was useless. The fourth cut to be made was on the head of the bald man that had toppled over and when he was set back up by the man in coveralls, his fighting spirit was apparently drained.

The man in the coveralls said something else which also went unheard by Evan. He could see their mouths move, but could not hear anything clearly. He watched as this man backed away from the bound victims, reclaiming his place in the circular form the group had made.

Three second passed and then the skinny man with the axes spoke again. Whatever he said drew a unanimous reply from those around him. The reply was so loud and in unison that Evan could actually hear it, although it was apparently a foreign language. To Evan, it sounded like “Bainada.”

With that reply, the skinny man turned slightly to his right. Without any warning and with a speed that Evan’s eyes almost couldn’t keep up with, he brought both axes down in arched, swooping motions. Both blades met one another and would have made a nice clanging noise if they had not been slowed by the thickness of the neck into which they were driven...