The Eastern Tunnel
“Wait! Wait, damn it!” Ian yelled as he ran behind the departing bus. As the bus pulled away, Ian was left in a black cloud of exhaust and futility.
It was a day where nothing went right for Ian. The alarm clock didn’t go off when it was supposed to, or he’d hit OFF instead of SNOOZE. He didn’t have time for coffee. At work, his desk was backed up with files from the weekend. His boss mentioned he’d have to stay late that day to complete the work. Missing the bus after work was the last kick in the bricks. In the evening, that meant a thirty-minute wait for the next bus. Ian sunk onto the bus stop bench and buried his face in his hands.
“Hello.” A voice came from his side.
Ian pulled his face from his hands and looked to his left. He saw a little girl clad in an oversized pink, puffy jacket. A scarf wrapped two or three times around her neck. Black birds were printed on the scarf. She wore a denim skirt and pink leggings. Colorful rain boots swung back and forth under the bench with a few inches of clearance from the ground. A backpack was strapped to her back and was partially unzipped. Sealed envelopes hung from the opening.
“Hello.” Ian said. “Where’d you come from?”
The girl gazed at Ian uninhibitedly. She inched closer. “Another one will come, you know.”
Ian nodded. He leaned back on the bench and put his arm over the back of it. He read a sticker slapped to the rotting wood that read, “Don’t eat the soup!” and didn’t understand what it meant. He checked his watch. Seven-thirty. Late. It was an unusual time for a little girl to be out alone.
“It’s been a long day.” He said.
“Why was it long?” She asked.
“Work. I worked.”
“Everyone works.”
“You don’t work.” He said.
She fell silent.
He shrugged and looked down the street to see if the next bus was on its way. It wasn’t. Sirens whined in the distance. The noise echoed off of buildings and cascaded down paved streets. Soon a convoy of ambulances and fire trucks passed the two of them. Ian modestly observed the girl and her reaction to the emergency vehicles. The girl didn’t look away from him as the blue and red lights reflected off of the innocent white of her face.
“Are you usually out this late without your parents?”
“Are you usually out this late without yours?” She asked in return.
Ian laughed. “Adults don’t typically live with their parents. Kids do. I haven’t lived with my parents for a long time.”
“Oh—“ The girl looked to Ian’s plain blue tie then back to his eyes. “Do you like being a grown-up?”
“I thought I asked you a question first?”
When the girl didn’t answer, Ian did.
“Sometimes. I think you guys have it better off than we do. No job. No responsibility.”
“Some of us have res—pon—sa—bilidees.”
“I’m not sure your chores are quite the same thing.” He said.
“Some of us do more than that.” She said.
Ian smiled and nodded. He looked at his watch. It’d only been a few minutes. No bus was in sight. He leaned forward on the bench and buried his face back into his hands.
“Some of us have more res—pon—sa—bilidees than adults!” The girl cried.
“I bet some do.” Ian grumbled into his sweating palms.
A frantic shuffling on pavement caught his attention. He lifted his head from the sanctuary of his hands to watch a swarm of people moving down the street. Thick smoke rose from the earth near the end of the street.
"Must be an accident or something." He said.
The street became unusually clear after the people disappeared near the smoky scene. Ian shot a look down the street. He winced with the changing color of the traffic lights. Green. Yellow. Red. The lights remained red and didn’t change again. The sidewalks were void of pedestrians. The lanes were void of cars. Fast food wrappers and newspapers blew around in their stead and flopped end over end like idiots. A hiss rose from the subterranean river beneath the city. There was a pressure about the empty city—one either deflating like a dry tick or preparing to explode.
“What’s going on? Must be a road block or something. Do you see anything?” Ian asked and stood to get a better view of the bellowing cloud at the end of the street.
A bus turned the corner in front of the smoke and approached the bus stop.
“There’s a bus! Hey, look at that. Just when I thought my day would get worse, huh?” Ian grinned and looked toward the bench. The girl was gone.
In the girl’s place was a pink envelope. He surveyed the bus stop and streets. He was alone.
“You dropped one of your envelopes!” He didn’t know her name. “Hey girl!” He shouted, but his voice was overrun by the squeal of the bus’s brakes.
The bus’s doors released a puff of air. The glass on the door wobbled as the doors opened with the all the gracelessness of a child on new crutches. A black gentleman dressed in a pressed blue uniform and a bus driver’s hat nodded to Ian.
“Hello, mister.” The bus driver said. A huge white smile burst from his face.
“Hello.” Ian replied with half-attention.
“Heading this way?”
Ian peered toward the entrances to the alleys. He scanned the area around the dark cloud at the end of the street. There were no sirens or lights or people anymore. The cloud grew.
“Mister?”
“Yeah.” Ian tapped the envelope against his chest. “I’m sorry, I was looking for someone.”
“I don’t see anyone, mister. Just you and me.” The bus driver’s smile grew.
Ian stepped into the bus. “You and me and—“ Ian examined the inside of the bus. No one else was in it. He paused next to the bus driver and held his breath.
“Behind the yellow line now, mister.” The bus driver gestured to the painted yellow line that ran from the driver’s seat to the inner corner of the stairs. “Can’t have you getting hurt.”
Ian moved deeper into the bus. “Don’t you think it’s a little weird that—“
The bus doors snorted and huffed like an angry bull before closing.
“We’re going to have to take the eastern tunnel. I’m afraid there’s nowhere else to go, mister.” The bus driver said apologetically. He watched Ian through a scratched fisheye mirror.
“The eastern tunnel?” It was a long way around, but it would get Ian home. “A little quiet, isn’t it? The bus, I mean.”
The bus driver began to whistle. He didn’t respond to the question. He pushed down on the broad acceleration pedal and the bus moved forward.
Ian found a seat near to the front of the bus. The seats were all made of leather. Most of the seats in the city buses were upholstered with cheap fabric. The difference dated the bus. The windows were rusted. An “In case of emergency” warning on a window was scraped away, which left a shadow of clarity in the wind-beaten pane. The bus was torrid. It caromed though the road was smooth.
“How long until we reach the Fargo stop?”
“Hard to say, mister.” The bus driver yelled over the engine.
Ian sat back into the leather chair. His hand ran over the cracked surface of the chair. His fingers traced the tears and shredded fabric webbing that surrounded sweat-stained, yellow foam. The windows began to sweat.
“Think you could turn the heat down?” Beads of perspiration clung to Ian’s forehead like parasites to a host.
“Afraid not, mister. It’s only gonna get hotter, I bet. The tunnel and all.”
“Is there air conditioning or something?”
The bus driver went back to whistling his tune.
Ian sighed and tried to relax into the seat. A tap caught his ear from the floor of the aisle. He looked to his right and noticed he’d dropped the pink envelope. He reached down to lift the envelope from the ground but froze.
“Ian” was written in a child’s temperament on the envelope. Ian noti
ced a tremble in his hand.
“Ian?” He said. “How—“
“Approaching the eastern tunnel, mister.” The driver announced.
Ian ignored him. He lifted the envelope and put it on his lap. He stared at it as the bus shot into the tunnel. Lights at the top of the tunnel flew by one after another which created a blinking effect in the bus.
Ian saw the name then didn’t—Ian, then nothing, Ian, then darkness, Ian…
Ian’s eyes rose to the fisheye mirror. He saw the driver watching him. Darkness took the bus. When the next light came, the bus driver stared forward.
Ian’s hands fumbled over the letter. They were shaking.
“I didn’t tell her my name.” He said. “Did I?”
Ian observed the sealed flap of the pink envelope for a minute. The engine of the bus thundered in the tunnel. It became hotter in the bus and the sweat trickled down Ian’s face into the collar of his shirt. The bus driver’s whistling cut through the engine’s roar.
Ian tore open the pink envelope and pulled a folded letter from it. He unfolded the wide-ruled page and read the text written in purple gel pen:
Ian Johnson,
If you’re reading this letter, you’re in the eastern tunnel.
Ian paused. His mouth fell open. Darkness consumed the bus before light was restored. He continued.
I regret having this responsibility.
Darkness. It became hotter. Ian ducked behind the seat in front of him and pulled the letter taut with both shaking hands. He whispered, "What the hell is going on?"
You didn’t miss the bus this afternoon. You were right on time.
The light became steadier, but took on a red tone that lit up the bus like a strip mall dive bar. Ian peeked around the seat toward the fisheye mirror and the bus driver. The bus driver watched Ian as he was jolted back and forth with the bus’s movements. He winked at Ian. Darkness. Ian hid from the driver’s view. The bus became hotter.
That bus caught fire and was consumed.
“No it didn’t! No it didn’t!” Ian shouted and shot up from his seat. “I was at the bus stop!” Ian screamed at the letter. The inside of the bus glowed with a dull red.
“No need to fuss, mister. We’re almost there now!” The bus driver yelled.
“I need off of this bus. I need off of this bus right now! Stop! Stop the bus!” Ian shouted and ran toward the bus driver. He stepped past the yellow line and down a sunken step near the door. “Stop it now!” He cried.
“Ain’t no use, mister. We’re in a tunnel. Can’t let you off in a tunnel, can I?” The bus driver smiled again. His smile was brown and twisted in the dull redness.
“You don’t understand—“ Ian tapped the letter with his finger and sent ripples through the thin page. “This letter says I’m going to be in a bus accident. I need off of the bus!”
The bus driver shook his head.
“I believe the letter read that ‘the bus caught on fire and was consumed,’ mister. It’s already burned.” The bus driver frowned and his wide nostrils flared.
“H-How do you know that?” Ian staggered and put his back against the door of the bus.
Smoke leaked into the bus. Smoke shot from the vents. Smoke crept from the holes in the seats. Smoke crawled along the floor aisle like a heavy mist. Smoke crowded the bus where it was empty.
The bus driver leaned forward and turned the radio knob. A bluesy tune filled the bus in the chaos.
And the day keeps reminding me, there’s a hellhound on my trail.
It was the same tune that the bus driver had whistled.
Hellhound on my trail, hellhound on my trail.
“This here—“ The bus driver pointed to the radio. He rocked back and forth and shook his head. “—this is Robert Johnson, mister. You ever heard Robert Johnson? They say the devil was after this man. Mm mm.”
Ian turned around and beat on the closed door of the bus. “Let me out! Let me out of here!” He shrieked. His fingers dug between the bus’s folding doors and he tried to pry them open. The door didn’t give.
“I’ll be damned! You two share the same last name, don’t you, mister? I’ll be damned.”
Ian didn’t ask how the bus driver knew his name. Ian pulled on the metal doors until his fingers bled. He kicked the glass windows on the door, but they didn’t break.
“Stop the bus! Let me out of here!” Ian plead. He fell against the doors and began to sob.
“We’re almost out of the tunnel now, mister. You’ll be out in no time.”
You sprinkled hot foot powder, mmm, around my door. All around my door.
Flames rose from the bus’s floor like an ignited gas range. The flames licked around the bus driver’s blue pant leg, but he did not catch. Like greedy, impish hands, the fire wrapped around Ian and stung him.
“Ah! Ah!” He screamed and slapped the flames. He jumped wildly around the door.
“Now you’re feelin’ it, mister!” The bus driver swayed and danced in his chair. His hands rolled the large driving wheel left and right, but the bus moved straight through the tunnel. He sang with the music:
All I need is my little sweet woman and to keep my company.
Ian ran from the door of the bus through the rising flames. The flames climbed his body and burned away his clothes and flesh. The louder he screamed, the louder the music played. Ian fell to his knees in pain as the bones of his feet melted and blood pooled around him. Flames lashed at Ian’s chin and eyes. His eyelashes and hair singed and curled into ash. As he stared forward and his nerve endings burned away, the girl from the bus stop rose from the flames in front of him as if birthed by the fire. She was dressed in her puffy pink jacket and she smiled at Ian.
“The bus caught fire and was consumed.” She whispered to Ian as his ear fell from his skull and his eyes burst in their sockets.
Hey hey hey hey! My company.
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