Bus Quakes
by Adam C. Richardson
The quakes started on my first bus ride across the city. It was already a dreadful Monday morning—a broken shoelace, spilled coffee, noisy neighbors kind of morning. My new apartment was five blocks from the bus stop, and as I walked the unfamiliar sidewalks, I peered warily down each alleyway, expecting lunatic muggers at every corner. I’d never lived in a real city. I’d never taken a bus. I never thought I’d have to.
Another man waited at the bus stop. He wore a bright orange hunter’s cap and had a patchy beard. “I’m Vincent. I work downtown,” he said in a goofy-cartoon sort of voice. “Work in the warehouse district. I assemble custom elevator button housings.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve and smiled. “What do you do, Chief?”
I tried to look past him. He stood right in my face, staring down at me with his wet grin.
“I’m a computer programmer,” I said.
“What language? What language do you program?”
People liked to ask this question. They wanted to categorize me.
“I’m an assembly specialist for the Doric 7 operating system.”
His eyes brightened. “Doric 7. That sounds cool. Is it cool?” And for no reason at all, he added, “I’m Vincent.”
What could I say? Was it cool that my expertise was in a dead operating system? Was it cool that my career was built on a crumbling foundation and that I only stuck with it because I was up to my nose in debt and alimony payments? Should I tell him that the only company who had a need for someone with my skills insisted that I transfer to this godforsaken city if I wanted to keep my job?
Vincent’s expectant gaze didn’t waver. “Doric?” I finally said. “It’s okay.”
“Hey Chief, you speak assembly, and I’m an assembler. That’s funny. Isn’t that funny?”
He continued his one-sided banter while I hunched at the curb, eyes fixed on the road. I tried to remember the dream I’d had the night before. It was one I had often, one in which I danced on sunset clouds, holding hands with my…my friend? My sister? Her smile was so familiar, and yet when I tried to envision her face, the vision slipped away like sand through my fingers.
The bus arrived, interrupting my reverie. I stepped back for Vincent to go. “You were here first, Chief,” he said and moved behind me.
With shaking legs, I boarded the bus. I couldn’t find a sign indicating the bus fare, and I froze. The bus driver turned and glared. “Two bucks, man.”
I handed him two dollars.
His face said, you’re an idiot. “Put it there.” He pointed at the money slot.
I cringed under the weight of accusing eyes all over the bus. I was making everybody late. Somebody laughed. My hands fumbled with the bills. When I tried sliding one into the slot, it bunched up around the edge. The driver snatched the bills out of my hand and said, “I got it. Go sit.”
I sighed, turned towards the back, and found myself staring into the hostile eyes of what looked like a female troll. She was short, round and angry with stringy blond hair and bags under her eyes. She regarded me with so much malice that I jumped back, bumping into Vincent. “Watch it, Chief,” he said.
“Sorry.” I darted past the woman and found a spot at the back of the bus next to a sleeping old man. Vincent sat across the aisle and continued to speak to me. As the bus pulled into traffic, it hummed.
“And if there’s an assembly language, what are you assembling? Why’s it called that? I’m Vincent. I’m an assembler, and I’m good at my job…”
The hum was irritating. I wondered if every bus ride would be this way. A pinprick of pain began somewhere behind my left eye and spread through my skull.
“…and they’ve got crappy coffee where I work, but it’s free, and I usually bring a thermos of coffee from home, but it’s all gone by the middle of the morning, so I’m thinking about bringing two thermoses. And wow, the bus is noisy. Listen to that, Chief.”
“It’s not always like this?” I asked.
“No, this is loud. It’s…”
We hit a bump and the bus rumbled. The hum intensified. People complained. By the time we reached the warehouse district, the bus rattled like we were driving over cobblestones. The driver spoke over the loudspeaker: “Sorry folks. Looks like we’ve got some engine trouble.”
The noise was intolerable. My head felt like it was being crushed by a huge fist. Vincent went silent. The old man next to me was awake now, his arms held across his chest as if holding back a heart attack.
Then, as several people departed, the rattling ceased. There seemed to be no reason for it. The last minutes of my bus experience were almost pleasant. As I disembarked at my stop, I overheard the driver speak to an old woman in the front seat. “Don’t know what caused it, but it’s going straight to the garage after this. I’ve had a bus with a bad cylinder before. Knocked like a monster, but nothing like that.”
And then the nightmare of public transportation was over. The nightmare of my new job lay before me.
***
Tuesday morning, I had the dream again. I danced with my friend across a purple sky. Her smile was like sunshine. I awoke in a pleasant mood.
That day, the bus ran smoothly. Vincent appeared to be in a melancholy mood and left me alone to reflect on the turn my life had taken. Here I was, surrounded by strangers, their body odor, their cold, staring eyes. Life back in Canton wasn’t perfect, but at least I’d found a balance. I could minimize my interaction with others there. I got to the office early while the sidewalks were still empty. If I shopped early on Saturday mornings, I’d have the grocery store almost completely to myself. In my free time, I could hide in front of the television. Memories of my simpler past made the bus ride almost pleasant.
On Wednesday, Vincent was gone. That put me in a hopeful mood. Then I got on the bus. The troll lady was there, glaring up with those hostile eyes. Again, I recoiled. Was she that way with everyone or just me? I put on my best scowl as I passed. I sat at the very back of the bus. The rumbling began almost immediately.
There were cries from passengers. “Not again!” The windows rattled, the lights blinked in epileptic fits, the floor thrummed like a hellish jackhammer. “It’s been checked out,” the bus driver said with a shrug. “Don’t know what’s going on with this thing. We’ll get it pulled out of service until it’s fixed.”
People got off the bus early. I held my hands against the sides of my head and clenched my teeth.
The instant the troll lady disembarked, the thrumming ceased. The rest of my ride was comfortable. The fact that the vibrations stopped exactly six blocks from my own building on two separate days seemed an interesting coincidence.
Thursday, the troll lady was gone. The bus ride was quiet except for Vincent and his exciting tale of a visit to the dentist. On Friday, she was back, and the noise began the moment we pulled away from the curb. “This is a different bus,” the driver exclaimed. “This can’t be happening.” Some people got out immediately, preferring to take a cab. I endured it. And again, when the troll lady got off the bus, the noise ceased.
On Monday, the bus was crowded. The driver said, “Sorry, man. The last bus broke down, so we’ve got a double load.”
“Broke down, huh? Must have been the noisy bus,” I said.
“Mmm,” he said.
There were no empty seats. People stood in the aisle, hanging on to the overhead rails. I had to stand uncomfortably close to the troll lady. She glared up at me with undisguised contempt. I tried to glare back, but she was better at it. My eyes dropped to the floor.
The bus hadn’t gone twenty yards when it began to shake violently. A woman screamed. A man in the aisle fell into the laps of two dangerous looking boys. “What the hell?” the driver shouted. After a block, the bus stalled. Even with the engine off, the bus shook. The driver was furious. He managed to get it started again, but after moving a few feet, he pulled to the curb and shut it off. The moment he opened the door, people ran out. The troll lady, now terrified, was one of the first to flee. The instant she was off the bus, the tremors stopped.
Everyone froze. The driver stared at his instrument panel, flummoxed. He started the bus. It ran smoothly. He revved the engine a few times. He spoke into his radio. After a minute’s deliberation, he waved all the passengers back onto the bus. They trickled in reluctantly. The troll lady was last, still looking fearful until she spotted a man in her usual seat. She grabbed a rail and glared at him.
The instant the bus moved, the rumbling began, worse than ever. The driver was nearly bucked out of his seat. The bus stalled again. “I’m sorry folks,” he shouted, barely audible over the rattling. “I’ll call for another bus. In the meantime…”
Whatever else he said was drowned out by the noise. He opened both doors and bodies streamed out. Again, I noticed that the bus stopped shaking the instant the troll lady was on the sidewalk. Once it was quiet, the driver said there’d be another bus in fifteen minutes.
When I realized I was late for work, all other concerns vanished. This was only my second week at the office, and I was already showing up tardy. My mind was racked with thoughts of unemployment, the wrath of my ex-wife’s lawyer and phone calls from bill collectors. My life could collapse in on itself, ending in bitter failure.
I was drowning in mental anguish when the replacement bus arrived. It was a double-length model, big enough to fit everyone comfortably. It began to shake before I even sat down. Passengers groaned. The new bus driver hesitated, but the shake wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been on the previous bus. We pressed on towards downtown.
At work, I considered my commute options. The subway stop was much farther from my home, and it was…well, it was the subway. I’d seen subways on TV shows and movies. People got killed there. I could endure the bus tremors, I decided. Eventually, someone would sort the problem out.
Early Tuesday morning, I had the dream again. I held hands with my friend, and we laughed and danced. Was she my sister? Having been raised an orphan, that feeling of kinship was like paradise. I woke with a smile. I took it as a good omen.
The troll lady was not on the bus that day. There were no tremors. The glowing feeling from my dream persisted. For once, I felt good.
Two transit cops sat at the front of the bus with another man—a hard-faced man in a black suit with mirrored sunglasses and military poise. He appeared to scrutinize every passenger as they passed. I considered telling them about my observations of the troll lady.
Wednesday, she was back. The bus shook the instant I sat down. After half a mile, our driver pulled over and threw his hands up. He radioed for help. Passengers disembarked, disgusted.
As we waited outside, Vincent shared his theories about the bus. Rodents in the engine? A jackhammer strapped to the undercarriage? Aliens? I ignored him. He eventually engaged another man in a discussion about how the shakes bore a resemblance to his experience on a broken rollercoaster.
I noticed the man in the mirror sunglasses walking among the passengers, asking questions. When he reached me, he smiled. I couldn’t see his eyes, but his smile felt icy. “Mr. Fenway,” he said. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“How do you know my name?”
His jaw tightened. “I’m Pritchard, with the transit police. I knew your name the moment you swiped your bus pass.”
That seemed unlikely. “What do you want?”
“I’ve been told by other bus passengers that these anomalies only occur when you get on the bus. Do you have any ideas about that?”
Was he serious?
“Me? I’ve got nothing to do with this. I just want to get to work. I’m already late, and your buses keep…”
“We’re working on the problem, Mr. Fenway. But since we don’t know what the problem is, we’re gathering data. A man in your line of work understands that you can’t solve a problem until you’ve got all the data. Am I right?”
This was no transit cop. I stammered, “How do you…”
“As I said, this problem only happens when you’re on the bus. You.” Pritchard jabbed me in the chest with his index finger, and I stepped back. “Anything you’d like to say about that?”
My face grew hot. “Don’t touch me. I want to see your ID.”
“It’s a simple question, Fenway. Do you have any ideas about this problem or don’t you?”
“NO!”
“No? We’ve never had this problem until last week. And you moved to the city last week. Sounds like more than a coincidence, don’t you think?”
Pritchard smiled. He was enjoying this.
I turned away from him, but I could feel his eyes on me, like an icicle aimed at the back of my neck. Then I heard him walk away.
“Wait,” I said.
He turned and stepped up close. “What is it?”
I was face to face with two images of myself reflected in his shades. I looked nervous and small. I stepped back. “Uh…I…” I nearly forgot what I wanted to say. “That lady,” I said, pointing. “The short one that’s blond and…”
“Fat?” Pritchard supplied with a grin.
“Uh…yes. I’ve noticed that the bus doesn’t shake if she’s not around. It stops the moment she gets off. If you want to blame someone for the problem, I think you should take a closer look at her.”
He stared at her and rubbed his jaw. “Her, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Have you ever met her before?”
“No.”
“And you’re blaming that little woman for all this trouble? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Well, yeah.”
The replacement bus pulled to the curb. I was relieved when Pritchard walked away towards it.
When I got on the bus, the troll lady was already seated, scowling at me. I tried to move to the back, but Pritchard stood in my way.
“Why don’t you sit in the front today,” he said.
I tried to get angry. I couldn’t allow him to publicly bully me. “I can sit wherever I damn well…”
He jabbed his finger toward the front. “Sit!”
There was only one seat available, in the long row along the side, next to the troll lady. I considered standing, but that would have been too obvious. As I sat down, she moved her bulk as far from me as possible, encroaching on the old lady next to her. I did the same in the opposite direction.
The bus jarred back and forth violently, shaken like a child’s toy. People were thrown into the aisle. Someone screamed. The bus driver flailed out of his seat, face down on the steps. He collided with the door.
Pritchard watched me. He spoke into his collar.
This was crazy. He blamed me for this. I bolted from my seat, climbed over the bus driver’s scrabbling body and pushed the door open. I jumped out onto the sidewalk, ran a few steps, and breathed a sigh of relief.
Something stung the back of my neck. As I spun around to look for the source, the world went out of focus. Everything turned gray as the sidewalk rushed up to meet my face…
***
I was back in the purple sunset, dancing with her. She held my hand and we laughed. “Soon,” she said.
I woke up in a dim room with blank walls. Florescent light filtered in from a tiny glass window on the door, casting a luminous rectangle across the foot of the bed. I wore a hospital gown, feeling bruised and violated. As the fuzziness left my mind, I realized I was late for work. When I found the strength, I got up and pounded on the door. “Please! Somebody let me out of here!”
The door flew open, and Pritchard appeared in his signature sunglasses. Two large men in white lab coats flanked him. “Mr. Fenway, we’ve got questions for you,” Pritchard said.
The two men took me by the arms, and Pritchard led the way along a narrow hallway of metal doors and fluorescent lights. They brought me to an interrogation room. A mirror stretched across one wall, and I observed my nervous eyes, my hair tangled like a messy child, my short frame draped in the inadequate gown. I felt very small.
They pushed me into a chair. Pritchard sat smiling across from me, a clipboard in his hand. “Mr. Fenway, are you on any medication?”
“I haven’t done anything wrong. I just want to get to work.”
“Are you on any medication?”
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Pritchard slammed the clipboard flat on the table and leaned forward. “You’ll deserve to get out of here when you quit whining and answer my questions,” he snarled. “Are—you—on—medication?”
“N—no.”
He lifted the clipboard and checked off an item. His smile returned. “Are you regularly exposed to high levels of electromagnetic frequency?”
“Not that I know of. Listen…”
He made another checkmark. “Have you been in close proximity with radioactive materials?”
I groaned. “I’m just a normal person. I just do my job. Don’t I have rights?”
“Of course you have rights, if you’re normal. But you aren’t normal, are you, Mr. Fenway? There’s something about you we can’t explain, and until we understand it, your rights are suspended. ” He grinned like a crocodile. “So answer my questions, be very cooperative, and if I tell you to lick my boots, just do it, because you’re not leaving here until I’m happy. The sooner we know what kind of freak you are, the sooner you can be on your way…unless you’re a danger to the citizens who really do have rights.”
He tapped his pen against his clipboard. “Have you been in close proximity with radioactive materials?”
I recognized the cruelty in his voice. I’d faced it my whole life. This was just one more bully in a long line of bullies. I’d suffered them through all my years in the orphanage. I’d been elbowed out of line, beaten and laughed at from my earliest memories. I didn’t know why I was a magnet for abuse. Maybe it was the scared rodent look in my eyes or my short stature. For whatever reason, if there was someone with cruel inclinations nearby, they would inevitably be drawn to me. I might as well be wearing a bull’s-eye.
I answered Pritchard’s questions for an hour. Then I was escorted to a lab and shoved into an MRI machine. That was followed by X-rays, an EKG, more questions, and then I was escorted back to my little room. I don’t know how long I stayed there. A man stepped in with a tray of bland food and set it on the floor by the door. I ate. I waited. Some hours later, another tray came. I ate. Soon after, I passed out.
When I regained consciousness, I found myself sitting upright, my arms and legs strapped to a chair.
“What’s going on,” I mumbled. I fought for clarity against the drugs that swam in my system.
The room was tiny, with a slatted metal divider along one side. A camera hung from the ceiling.
I heard faint voices through the divider. “Strap her down. Right here. We’ll test it while she’s still unconscious. Subject Number One is already in place.”
A low steady hum reverberated in the walls. “It’s already started,” someone said.
The hum continued for several minutes. More voices spoke:
“Move her up closer.”
“She’s heavy.”
“That’s a two decibel increase.”
“Wait, she’s coming around.”
At that point, the hum became so loud that I could no longer discern the voices.
After a minute, the metal divider slid into the wall, revealing a space identical to the one I was in. In the center, strapped to a chair, sat the troll lady. When she saw me, she screamed. The room began to thrum like tracks under a freight train. Dust fell through cracks in the acoustic tiles above. One of them fell in front of me. I shouted “What is this? What’s happening? Why are you doing this?” I screamed until I was hoarse and a man in a lab coat entered and injected something into my arm. The humming subsided and everything went gray.
I woke up in the interrogation room, still strapped down. Pritchard was there with yet another man in a lab coat. Their expressions were granite.
“How long have you known Ms. Bales?” the main in the lab coat asked.
“Who?” My head swam. I’d been drugged so often, nothing seemed real anymore.
“Ms. Bales. You saw her during the experiment.”
I tried to focus on the man. “You mean the troll lady?”
Pritchard laughed derisively. “Troll lady. You’re a real piece of work, Fenway.”
“How long have you known the troll lady?” the interviewer asked.
“I don’t know her—never met her. Wish I’d never seen her. She looks so…so mean.”
“According to our records, you were an orphan, abandoned as a child. Is that correct?”
I forced my eyes to focus on him. “Yes,” I said. “Do I get a phone call? Am I under arrest?”
Pritchard leaned forward. “Don’t start that again.” He had the tone of one addressing a disobedient dog. “Answer the man’s questions.”
“I was an orphan,” I said. “Back in Canton. Why?”
“Ms. Bales was also an orphan. The question is relevant because both of you appear to have been abandoned as children, and at roughly the same time. Do you perhaps recognize Ms. Bales from before that time?”
I tried to laugh. “I would have been two years old.”
“Do you recall, Mr. Fenway, if you were ever subjected to experiments during your time in the orphanage?”
I shook my head. “No.”
The questions continued. When the man in the lab coat was finished another man replaced him. This one asked questions about my childhood, my feelings, my daily routine, my favorite TV shows. When he was through, yet another man entered and took a blood sample. Then Pritchard unstrapped me and escorted me into the hall. “It’s time to go back to your cell.”
“When can I leave?” I asked as we walked.
“When we know what you are.”
“But I’m nobody.”
“Then why does the air quake whenever you’re near your so-called troll lady?”
I began to cry. “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask her?”
Pritchard shoved me inside my cell. “Just tell us what we want to know, Mr. Fenway. Fess up. What makes you such a freak?”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand why…”
He slammed the door.
I stared at the ceiling all night, wondering why such terrible things happened to me. On TV, people lived normal, happy lives. Sometimes they lived like kings. Why couldn’t my life be like that? As I fell asleep, I thought about the dreams where I flew in the clouds with my friend. I tried so hard to remember her face, but the memory was slippery. Still, the thought of her brought me a small measure of peace.
When I woke, I was in yet another room full of odd instruments and bright lights. My head throbbed. There was an IV drip in my arm, and my wrists were secured to rails at the sides of my bed. They’d done something to my head. A man unstrapped my right arm to take a blood sample. Once he had taped a cotton ball over the hole in my arm, I felt my scalp. There was a scabby line of stitches across the back of my skull. “What have you done to me?” I asked.
He quietly secured my wrist against the rail.
I drifted in and out of consciousness for days. After an interminable amount of time, two men released my arms and cleaned me up. They placed me in a wheelchair, securing my arms with straps.
I wept. “Please let me go,” I whimpered. “Please.”
They wheeled me down a hallway and stopped at a door where Pritchard waited, hands clasped together, staring down through his familiar sunglasses. “Why don’t you come clean, Mr. Fenway? The sooner you tell us what you are, the sooner we can start going easy on you.”
“I doubt it,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
I wished I had an eloquent speech about the tyranny I’d suffered from people like him and how much I hoped he would pay for the pain he’d caused. “You’re a bully,” was all I managed.
He was silent. After a moment he nodded and the man behind me pushed me into the room with the slatted divider wall.
I was alone for an hour. Then the hum began. They’d obviously pushed the troll lady into the other side of the room.
Again, the divider slid back. The troll lady glared at me from her wheelchair. Her head was bandaged. The rumbling grew more intense. I could barely hear her over the increasing tumult. “This is your fault!”
The rumble became a violent thrashing. Cracks appeared on the walls. The tiny window on the door beside me shattered. The ceiling collapsed in places. Someone pushed at the door, but its frame twisted and jammed it against the floor. I heard shouting. The troll lady looked scared and angry and wild. Somehow, the strap on her left wrist came loose and she tore her arm free. A man ran into her side of the room, but a falling beam knocked him to the ground.
As the room around us disintegrated, the troll lady pulled the strap from her right wrist and then stooped down and freed her ankles. She was a volcano of rage, and it was all aimed at me. I struggled to get free, screaming like a helpless child. “Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone!”
As she stomped towards me, the shaking increased. One of the fluorescent lights exploded above us. It felt like my body would crumble. She must have felt it as well, because she slowed down and grasped at her chest. She continued forward. She made a fist and swung at my face. “This is YOUR FAULT!”
Contact. Her hand hit my face. Everything went brilliant white.
For a moment, the world around us disappeared. There was only her and me. Within the brilliance, I felt my whole life running backwards through every unpleasant moment, every cruel exchange, every fear and frustration. I felt back to my childhood, and then I reached further back to something before—before I chose this life, before I wrapped myself in this coarse flesh…
…before, when there was only laughter.
I laughed out loud, and the laughter transformed me. She changed too, and I recognized her face—the one I’d known forever. The crude human disguises we’d donned years ago evaporated. We now stood together, brother and sister reunited. Our radiant bodies illuminated the broken room like noonday sun. I stretched my lithe limbs like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis.
I remembered who I was. I remembered why we had come here—our decision and our promise. The quaking had ceased the instant she touched me. Our contact was the catalyst that broke the spell we had placed on ourselves. It was a moment foreordained. The tremors had only been a side-effect of our anticipation—a manifestation of our bond.
Someone pounded on the door. Pritchard wrenched it open and forced himself in. He saw us and stopped.
Two other men followed. They looked up at us in wonder. “They’re…they’re so beautiful,” one of them sighed, his eyes reflecting our brilliant aura. The other man could not speak. He dropped to his knees, shaking.
We stood before these men, hand in hand, our bodies pulsing with energy. The first time I had seen humans, they were a mystery to me. Now I understood, and I nearly wept for them.
Pritchard tore off his sunglasses. His eyes were small and mean. “So this is what you really are?” he spat. “Some kind of alien? This is the truth at last?”
“The truth?” My voice was warm honey. It felt good to use it. “I fear that the truth is beyond you.”
He pulled a gun from inside of his jacket and aimed it. “Get back in your chair,” he ordered.
I laughed. It wasn’t a cruel laugh, but I doubt he understood that.
He took aim and fired. I laughed, and he continued shooting. I waited for him to finish.
When his gun was empty, I glided forward and caressed his cheek. He recoiled, stumbling into the other men.
I said, “Mr. Pritchard, you are so full of pain and fear, and you don’t even know why.”
My sister moved to my side. “That’s why we came here,” she said. “That’s why we became you. We wanted to understand why creatures blessed with such intelligence and surrounded by such beauty could willfully choose to be governed by misery.”
“We couldn’t understand by observing,” I said.
“We could only become you and feel it for ourselves,” she said.
“And now, we know your secret.”
“We can see your destiny, and it’s…amazing.”
“We pity you.”
My sister’s face grew brighter. “And we envy you. If you can survive yourselves, you will learn the secret as well.”
Pritchard now cowered in the corner, looking feral and small. There was no point in saying anything else. We drew our eyes upward and ascended.
“Wait,” said one of the men. “What did you learn? What is the secret?”
I smiled as we rose out of sight. “You wouldn’t believe us if we told you. You’ll have to figure it out for yourselves.”
Then we were off like shooting stars. We laughed and danced into the upper atmosphere. We gazed down on this strange world with its strange creatures, and we shared a smile. “Let’s go tell the others,” I said. “They’ll want to know everything.” We leapt into the wide open and exchanged stories on our journey home.
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About the Author
Adam C. Richardson makes his money as a software engineer. He lives in the Minnesota outback with his wife, three daughters, and one cantankerous cat.
“Bus Quakes” © 2012 Adam C. Richardson
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